} 


LIBRARY 

or  THE 

Theological   Seminary, 

PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


^^^^  BL  181  .P42  1870 

^j^^^     Peabody,  Andrew  P.  1811- 

1893. 
Boo    Christianity  the  religion  o 
^.^.^^   nature  . 


CHRISTIANITY 


EELIGION    OF    NATUEE. 


LECTURES 

DELIVERED    BEFORE    THE  LOWELL  INSTITUTE 


A.  P.  PEABODY,  D.  D.,  LL.D., 

PBEACHER  TO   THE   UNIVERSITY,   AND   PLUMMER   PROFESSOR   OF   CHRISTIAN   MORALS 
IN   HARVARD   COLLEGE. 


^econti  SEtiition,  EebtsetJ. 


BOSTON: 
aOULD     AND     LINCOLN 

59     WASHINGTON    STREET. 

NEW    YORK:   SHELDON    AND    COMPANY. 
CINCINNATI:    GEORGE   S.   BLANCHARD. 

1870. 


^ 


Entered  acct)rding  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1863,  by 
GOULD     A  X  D    LINCOLN, 
In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  for  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


PRE  FAC  E. 


The  author  by  no  means  claims  as  original  the  con- 
ception of  Christianity  as  coincident  with  the  religion 
of  nature  ;  but  he  is  not  aware  that  precisely  this  line 
of  proof  or  defence  has  been  adopted  in  any  formal 
treatise  on  the  evidences  of  Christianity.  Yet  he  is 
profoundly  convinced  that  it  is  on  grounds  of  a  priori 
probability  that  the  controversy  between  those  who  ad- 
mit and  those  who  deny  a  special,  authoritative  reve- 
lation through  Jesus  Christ  is  now  to  be  waged. 

It  is  not  a  little  singular  that  a  priori  objections  took 
precedence  of  historical  in  the  early  days  of  the  Church. 
We  have  no  reason  to  suppose  that  Celsus  denied  the 
miraculous  element  in  the  Evangelical  narratives.  In 
times  of  ready  faith  as  to  the  occult  and  marvellous  in 
nature  and  the  wonder-working  power  of  demons,  it  was 
easy  to  admit  the  salient  facts  recorded  in  the  Gospels, 
and  yet  to  reject  the  truths  which  they  seemed  to  autlien- 
ticate.  The  two  leading  considerations  urged  by  Celsus 
against  the  new  religion  were  its  promulgation  among 
and  for  the  poor,  uneducated,  and  ignoble,  and  its  claim 
to  universality,  both  which  features  appeared  to  liim  so 
intrinsically  absurd  as  to  be  incapable  of  proof.     It  is 


IV  PREFACE. 


no  mean  evidence  of  the  penetrating  and  transforming 
power  of  the  religion  thus  assailed,  that  these  strongest 
points  of  attack  are  now  impregnable  stations  of  de- 
fence, —  that  the  whole  civilized  world  would  demand 
as  essentials  of  a  divinely  authenticated  religion  that 
it  should  embrace  within  its  blessings  and  its  promises 
all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men,  and  that  it  should  be 
adapted  to  universal  acceptance. 

In  the  last  century,  Hume  indeed  maintained  the 
antecedent  impossibility  of  miracles  in  such  a  sense  as 
to  render  them  incapable   of  being   authenticated;  it 
being,  as  he  argued,  more  probable  that  any  conceiv- 
able amount  of  human  testimony  should  be  false,  than 
that  they  should  be  true.     But  the  greater  part  of  the 
infidel  writers  of  the  century  aimed  their  attacks  at  the 
alleged  facts  and  the  historical  evidences  of  the  Hebrew 
and  Christian  Scriptures.    Accordingly,  it  was  the  prime 
object  of  the  advocates  of  Christianity  to  accumulate 
proofs  of  the  genuineness  and  authenticity  of  the  sacred 
writings.     This  they  did,  some  of  them  with  more  zeal 
and  thoroughness  than  discrimination  and  critical  dis- 
cernment.   Non  multwn,  sed  multa,  might  well  have  been 
the  motto  of  not  a  few,  and  testimonies  of  unimpeach- 
able validity  and  explicitness  were  often  weakened  by 
their  juxtaposition  with  those  of  doubtful  authority  or 
of  imperfect  relevancy.     Lardner's  great  work  lies  es- 
pecially open  to  tliis  objection,  if  we  consider  it  as  an 
argument  for  Christianity,  while  as  a  repertory  of  the 
materials  for  argument  it  cannot  be  too  highly  prized  or 
too  gratefully  regarded.     Paley's  treatise  on  the  E^* 


PEEFACE.  V 

dences  of  Christianity,  on  the  other  hand,  was  admirably 
adapted  to  the  exigencies  of  his  time.  It  seems  to  us  a 
complete  refutation  of  historical  scepticism.  It  is  not 
obsolete,  and  never  can  become  so.  In  our  own  day, 
with  a  narrower  scope,  Mr.  Norton's  great  work  on 
the  Genuineness  of  the  Gospels  is  unequalled  as  a  com 
pact  array  of  historical  arguments.  His  motto  is,  Non 
multa,  sed  multum.  He  rejects  all  testimony  against 
which  a  shadow  of  doubt  or  a  charge  of  irrelevancy  can 
be  virged,  nay,  almost  all  individual  testimony  ;  for  the 
witnesses  that  he  places  on  the  stand  are,  with  hardly 
an  exception,  communities  or  bodies  of  men,  and  official 
personages  who  must  have  virtually  spoken  in  the  name 
and  expressed  the  belief  of  the  several  churches  or  the 
collective  Christendom  which  they  represented.  The 
second  and  third  volumes,  comprising  the  history  of  the 
various  Gnostic  sects,  evince  conclusively  that  those 
heretics,  who  on  theological  grounds  could  not  but  have 
rejoiced  to  invalidate  our  canonical  Gospels,  could  find 
no  historical  pretence  for  their  rejection.  Mr.  Norton 
also,  at  several  points,  adduces  the  strongest  circumstan- 
tial evidence  for  these  Gospels,  showing  that  certain 
universally  admitted  states  of  belief  and  ecclesiastical 
habitudes  could  not  have  existed,  had  not  the  genuine- 
ness of  the  Gospels  been  universally  regarded  as  beyond 
dispute.  In  fine,  writers  of  this  historical  school  have 
proved  conclusively  that  the  authorship  of  the  four  Gos- 
pels, the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  and  the  Epistles  of  St. 
Paul,  by  the  men  whose  names  they  bear,  rests  on  much 
stronger  evidence  than  can  be  adduced  for  the  genuine- 


VI  PREFACE. 

ness  of  any  other  writings  of  equal  antiquity  ;  and  that 
the  facts  which  they  record  or  recognize  have  all,  and 
more  than  all,  the  marks  of  authenticity  which  belong 
to  the  universally  admitted  facts  of  ancient  history. 

It  may  indeed  be  said  that  the  now  dominant  school 
of  infidelity,  naturalism,  or  pseudo-Christianity  stands 
on  the  high  ground  of  searching  historical  criticism. 
This  we  deny.  Its  historical  conclusions  are  not  rea- 
sons for,  but  corollaries  from,  its  unbelief.  It  assumes 
the  a  priori  impossibility  of  revelation,  special  inspira- 
tion, and  miracle,  and  on  that  basis  erects  its  theories 
of  the  genesis  of  the  sacred  books  and  of  the  (so-called) 
legends  or  myths  which  they  record.  Their  reasoning 
is  this :  "  Had  the  actual  companions  of  Jesus  Christ 
written  the  Gospels,  their  contents  could  not  have  been 
so  utterly  false  as  we  know  them  to  be  ;  therefore  these 
books  were  of  later  date,  of  divided  authorship,  of 
gradual  growth."  Were  the  critical  canons  and  pro- 
cesses of  Strauss  and  the  Tiibingen  divines  applied  to 
any  other  than  our  sacred  books,  the  manifest  result 
would  be  a  reductio  ad  absurdum.  Were  these  canons 
and  processes  admitted  in  any  other  field  of  historical 
or  bibliographical  research,  no  ancient  book  whatever 
could  be  received  as  genuine,  no  fact  a  few  centuries 
old  could  be  regarded  as  otherwise  than  fabulous  or 
doubtful,  and  the  whole  realm  of  the  past  would  be 
given  over  to  Pyrrhonism.  But  the  desperate  expe- 
dients to  which  writers  of  this  school  are  driven,  may 
be  regarded  as  furnishing  a  valuable  contribution  to  the 
Christian  ev^' deuces.     Their  problem  is  to  account  for 


PREFACE.  VU 

the  existence,  internal  character,  and  general  reception 
of  the  Gospels  on  the  hypothesis  that  their  contents  are 
in  the  main  false.  They  can  solve  this  problem  only  by 
maintaining  that  these  books  came  into  being  and  grew 
into  their  present  shape  in  ways  in  which  no  books  were 
ever  known  to  have  their  birth  and  growth  ;  and  that 
—  mere  foundlings,  the  children  of  many  parents,  owned 
of  none  —  they  foisted  themselves  at  once,  as  of  apos- 
tolic authority,  upon  the  faith  and  reverence  of  Chris- 
tian communities  in  every  part  of  the  civilized  world. 
A  problem  which  admits  of  no  more  rational  solution 
than  this  is  un solvable. 

Meanwhile  the  phasis  of  scepticism  which  now  so 
extensively  prevails  renders  it  incumbent  on  Christians 
to  demonstrate  that  the  religion  of  the  Gospel  is  in  ah 
its  parts,  in  all  its  apparatus,  in  all  its  history,  natural 
religion,  —  that  it  is  not  a  provisional  scheme,  not  a 
supplementary  dispensation,  but  co-eternal  with  the 
mind  of  God,  and  coeval  with  the  souls  of  men,  —  that 
its  doctrines  and  precepts  are  not  true  and  right  be- 
cause they  were  revealed,  bu.t  that  they  were  revealed 
because  they  are  essentially  true  and  immutably  right. 
It  is  only  when  this  conviction  is  produced  in  the  mind 
of  the  objector,  that  he  is  prepared  to  listen  to  argument 
and  to  weigh  evidence  as  to  the  historical  aspects  of  the 
question. 

The  following  Lectures  grew  out  of  an  invitation 
received  by  the  author,  to  prepare  for  the  Lowell  Insti- 
tute a  course  of  Lectures  on  Natural  Religion.     He,  re- 


^U  PEEFACE. 

garding  Christianity  as  natural  religion  par  excellence, 
asked  and  obtained  permission  to  fill  out  a  programme 
for  the  prescribed  course  arranged  in  accordance  with 
this  view.  As  a  treatise  this  volume  is  incomplete,  and 
less  nearly  complete  than  it  might  have  seemed  had  a 
single  province  of  the  large  field  of  inquiry  been  se- 
lected. But  the  author  deemed  it  advisable,  in  a  series 
of  pubHc  Lectures,  rather  to  illustrate  the  extended 
application  of  his  mode  of  reasoning,  than  to  attempt 
the  thorough  treatment  of  any  one  department  of  the 
subject  to  the  neglect  of  all  the  rest. 

The  author  has  in  several  instances  incorporated  in 
these  Lectures  passages  of  his  own  articles  previously 
printed  in  the  periodicals  to  which  he  has  been  a  fre- 
quent contributor.  He  has  not  thought  it  expedient,  or 
even  right,  to  omit  things  that  needed  to  be  said,  because 
he  had  said  them  elsewhere,  or  to  present  in  a  meaner 
guise  thoughts  which  he  had  once  arrayed  in  the  best 
attire  he  could  weave  for  them. 

^  The  work  is  offered  to  the  public,  not  without  sincere 
diffidence  as  to  its  merits,  but  with  an  assurance  which 
cannot  be  made  stronger,  that  the  citadel  of  our  faith  is 
for  the  present  to  be  maintained  and  defended  chiefly 
on  such  grounds  as  are  here  exhibited. 

Harvard  University,  October  15,  1863.  • 


CONTENTS. 


LECTURE    I. 

Natural  and  Kevealed  Keligion. 

PAGB 

Christianity  as  old  as  the  Creation 13 

Religion  defined 17 

Distinction  between  Natural  and  Revealed  Religion 19 

Alleged  Sources  of  Religious  Knowledge,  —  Consciousness   ...  19 

Intuition        .        .        .        .21 

Reasoning          ...  23 

Analogy  proves  nothing 24 

Office  of  Analogy 26 

Amount  of  Religious  Knowledge  attainable  independently  of  Revelation  28 

Imperfections  of  Natural  Religion 29 


LECTURE    II. 

Revelation. 

Revelation  defined 32 

Natural  Religion  the  Material  for  Revelation 33 

Revelation  a  Postulate  of  Human  Nature 34 

Demanded  by  the  Analogy  of  the  Divine  Government .         .  36 

Rendered  probable  by  the  Nature  of  God 38 

Objections  to  Christianity  grounded  on  its  late  Promulgation  and  limited 

Diffusion 42 

Fitness  of  the  Christian  Era  for  the  Establishment  of  Christianity   .        .  45 
1* 


X  CONTENTS. 

LECTURE    III. 

Miracles. 

Revelation  needs  to  be  authenticated  ...  ...    51 

Belief  in  Miracles  natural  to  Man    ...                .  ,        .        56 

Miracles,  a  part  of  the  Course  of  Nature    ...          ^  ...    58 
Not  necessarily  Exceptions  to  Natural  Laws    ....        65 

Worth  of  a  miraculously  attested  Revelation,  in  Temptation  .        .        .     67 

In  Sorrow        .  .        .        68 


LECTURE    IV. 

Recoeds  of  Revelation. 

Man's  Need  of  Authoritative  Scriptures 72 

Revelation  must  needs  create  its  own  Literature 75 

Marks  of  Authenticity  in  the  Hebrew  and  Christian  Scriptures       .        .  76 

Human  Element  in  the  Scriptures 83 

Tokens  of  the  Divine  Element  in  their  Authorship 88 


LECTURE    V. 

The  Love  of  God. 

Man  may  verify  what  he  could  not  discover 93 

Beneficent  Ends  in  Nature 95 

The  Natural  Theology  of  Pain 98 

Moral  Evil 102 

The  Paternal  Providence  of  God 104 

The  Case  of  the  Unprivileged        .       .       .       ,       _,       .       .       .  109 


LECTURE    VI. 

The  Peovidence  of  God  in  Human  Aet. 

Art  is  but  the  Use  or  Imitation  of  Nature 116 

Adaptation  of  Man's  Physical  Constitution  to  the  Purposes  of  Art      .        123 
All  Art  Mathematical 130 


CONTENTS.  XI 

LECTURE    VII. 

The  Providence  of  God  in  Human  Society. 

The  Solidarity  of  the  Human  Family  a  Christian  Idea    ....  134 

Mutual  Relations  of  the  Races 135 

Distribution  of  Natural  Endowments 139 

The  Laboring  Classes  not  cut  off  from  the  Means  of  Improvement      .  145 

Man  overworked 147 

What  Machinery  will  do  for  the  Laborer 151 

LECTURE    VIII. 

The  Holiness  of  God.  — God  in  Chuist. 

God's  Holiness  manifested  in  the  Human  Conscience       ....  156 

In  his  Retributive  Providence     .        .        .  163 

Accordance  with  Nature  of  Christ's  Mediatorial  Office   ....  164 

Of  his  Manifestation  of  the  Divine  Attributes  165 
Of  his  Moral  Perfectness          .        .        .        .168 

Of  his  outward  Condition  and  Experiences   .  171 

LECTURE    IX. 

Immortality. 

The  Soul  Immaterial,  and  therefore  Immortal 176 

Perception  the  Function  of  the  Soul 180 

Immortality  inferred  from  the  Changes  that  take  place  in  Life        .        .  183 

From  the  Phenomena  of  Death    ....  184 

Arguments  for  Immortality  from  Man's  Intellectual  and  Moral  Nature       .  186 

From  the  Growth  of  Character  ia  Old  Age   .  189 

From  the  Waste  of  Life 191 

From  the  Instinct  of  Self-Advancement      .  193 

LECTURE    X. 

Christian  Morality. 

Christian  Morality  universal  and  eternal 198 

The  Mutual  Dependence  of  Piety  and  Charity  original  in  the  Gospel   .  199 


Xii  CONTENTS. 

The  Pietistic  Element  divorced  from  the  Philanthropic    .        .       .        .201 

Philanthropy  without  Piety 204 

The  two  united  in  Christ  and  in  Christianity    , 206 

The  Keconciliation  of  Self-Love  and  Brotheily  Love  peculiar  to  the 

Gospel 209 


LECTURE    XI. 

The  Natural  Eeligion  of  the  State. 

The  Family  the  Germ  of  the  State 216 

The  Fifth  Commandment  of  the  Decalogue  a  Political  Precept  .        .  217 

Relation  of  Domestic  Life  to  State  Life 221 

Civilization,  its  Means  and  its  HLnderances 227 

Christianity  essential  to  Progressive  Civilization 232 

Contrast  between  Ancient  and  Alodern  Civilization      ....  235 


LECTURE    XII. 

The  Sabbath  a  Law  of  Natural  Religion.  —  Conclusion. 

Christian  Institutions 237 

The  Sabbath  primeval 239 

A  law  of  the  Human  Body  and  of  the  Material  Universe      .  242 

Essential  to  Intellectual  Growth  and  Vigor      ...  244 

A  Civilizing  Agent 246 

Conduces  to  Man's  Political  Well-being   ....  248 

Indispensable  to  the  Religious  Nature       ....  251 

Recapitulation  of  the  Course 254 

Comparative  Worth  of  the  Internal  and  External  Evidences  of  Chris- 
tianity        255 

Conclusion 256 


CHEISTIANITY 

THE    KELIGION    OF    NATURE 


LECTURE    I. 

NATUEAL  AND  REVEALED  RELIGION. 

There  stands  an  ancient  architectural  pile,  with  to- 
kens of  its  venerable  age  covering  it  from  its  corner-stone 
to  its  topmost  turret;  and  some  imagine  these  to  be 
tokens  of  decay,  while  to  others  they  only  indicate,  by 
the  years  they  chronicle,  a  massiveness  that  can  yet  defy- 
more  centuries  than  it  has  weathered  years.  Its  founda- 
tion is  buried  in  the  accumulated  mould  and  clustered 
mosses  of  many  generations.  Its  walls  are  mantled  and 
hidden  by  parasitic  vines.  Its  apartments  are  some  of 
them  dank  and  cold,  as  if  their  very  cement  were  dis- 
solving in  chilly  vapors.  Others,  built  against  the  walls, 
were  never  framed  into  them  ;  and  now  their  ceilings 
are  broken,  their  floors  are  uneven  as  the  surface  of  a 
billow,  their  timbers  seem  less  to  sustain  one  another 
than  to  break  one  another's  fall.  All  through  the  house 
you  see  dilapidated  furniture,  —  ornaments  so  called, 
which  lost  their  last  touch  of  gilding  and  trace  of  beauty 
ages  ago,  —  articles  once  of  use,  which  it  seems  absurd 
to  call  utensils  now,  so  entirely  has  their  need  gone  by 
and  their  purpose  become  effete.     There  are  dwellers  in 


14  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION  OF  NATURE. 

the  mansion  whose  whole  demeanor  makes  you  tremble 
lest  the  structure  fall  on  your  head  or  collapse  beneath 
your  feet.  They  will  not  have  a  cobweb  disturbed,  lest 
the  ceiling  should  crumble  at  the  touch  of  the  broom. 
They  are  afraid  to  move  the  furniture,  lest  there  be 
found  some  ugly  gap  in  the  wall  behind.  And  as  for 
righting  any  of  the  displaced  beams,  or  substituting  new 
timbers  where  the  old  are  thoroughly  worm-eaten,  they 
would  as  soon  consent  to  have  the  whole  building  un- 
dermined or  blown  up.  They  assure  you  that  it  is  still 
safe  and  strong,  wind-proof  and  storm-proof,  and  that 
they  want  no  other  dwelling  till  its  builder  and  owner 
shall  prepare  for  them  a  new  mansion  under  a  brighter 
sky  and  in  a  more  genial  climate.  But  the  very  tones  in 
which  they  give  you  this  assurance  are  so  hesitating,  and 
they  move  about  with  so  soft  and  cat-like  a  tread,  and 
look  so  much  alarmed  at  the  least  gust  of  wind,  you  can 
hardly  persuade  yourself  that  they  believe  what  they 
say. 

You  determine,  therefore,  to  make  your  own  investiga- 
tions. You  dig  away  the  mould,  and  lo  !  the  foundation 
was  laid  by  no  mortal  hand  ;  it  is  primitive  rock  that 
strikes  its  roots  down  an  unfathomable  depth  into  the 
sohd  earth,  so  that  no  frosts  can  heave  it,  no  convulsions 
shake  it.  You  tear  the  ivy  from  the  walls,  and  you  find 
them  built  of  Cyclopean  stones  tongued  and  grooved  into 
each  other,  betraying  a  power  and  skill  that  have  no 
counterpart  in  the  masonry  of  these  modern  times,  and 
not  a  stone  can  need  readjusting  while  the  world  shall 
stand.  In  every  buttress  and  cross-wall,  in  the  jointed 
slabs  that  constitute  the  roof  and  the  Atlantean  pillars 
that  sustain  it,  you  discern,  with  the  unspent  strength  of 
ages  past,  hoarded  strength  for  unnumbered  ages  to  come. 


NATURAL   AND   REVEALED   RELIGION.  15 

As  to  the  feeble,  tottering,  effete  portions  of  the  edifice 
and  its  contents,  you  ascertain  that  all  which  bears  the 
marks  of  decay  is  of  comparatively  recent  date,  —  floors 
and  partitions  extemporized  to  suit  the  whims  of  individ- 
ual occupants,  mere  personal  furniture,  movables  that  do 
not  belong  there,  —  so  that  what  seems  old  is  new,  while 
what  is  really  old  gives  presage  of  perpetual  youth. 

Such  an  edifice  is  Christianity.  The  sceptic  denies, 
the  timid  disciple  doubts,  its  stability.  The  cry,  "  The 
Church  is  in  danger,"  is  almost  as  old  as  the  Church ; 
and  there  has  never  been  a  time  when  there  has  not 
been  in  some  quarters  a  tendency  to  repress  inquiry,  to 
discourage  thorough  discussion,  to  distrust  learning  and 
science  as  forces  that  might  shake  the  foundation  of 
man's  eternal  hope.  Even  to  the  most  friendly  eye 
there  is  much  about  Christianity  —  not  of  it  —  of  which 
we  cannot  say  that  it  will  last  always,  or  wish  that  it 
may  last  long.  It  has  extra-Scriptural  technicalities  of 
phrase  and  dogma  which  the  world  is  happily  outgrowing. 
Some  of  its  rituals  and  organizations  are  fast  losing  their 
hold  on  the  popular  reverence.  Its  records  are  passing 
through  the  fierce  ordeal  of  a  scientific  criticism,  which 
may  dislodge  various  old  traditions  as  to  their  interpreta- 
tion and  office.  Its  partition-walls  are  in  so  crumbling 
a  condition  that  they  can  hardly  be  propped  up  much 
longer,  and  through  many  of  them  bold  breaches  are 
already  made,  and  strong  hands  are  shaking  and  loosen- 
ing the  weak  mortar  and  frail  rafters  of  which  they  are 
built. 

Yet  Christianity  none  the  less  presents  the  aspect  of 
impregnable  strength,  its  foundation  the  Rock  of  Ages, 
its  walls  upheaved,  its  top-stone  laid,  by  the  hand  that 
built  the  heavens,  and  spread  the  floor  of  the  ocean,  and 


16  CHRISTIANITY  THE  EELIGION  OF  NATURE. 

reared  the  everlasting  liills.  Tindall's  deistical  work, 
"Christianity  as  old  as  the  Creation,  or  the  Gospel  a 
Republication  of  the  Law  of  Nature,"  admits  in  its  title 
the  strongest  ground,  nay,  the  only  ground,  on  which 
we  can  believe  or  defend  Christianity.  To  suppose  it  a 
Divine  afterthought,  a  supplementary  creation,  an  ex- 
crescence upon  nature,  is  to  dishonor  it  under  shelter 
of  pretended  advocacy,  —  nay,  more,  it  is  to  impugn  the 
Divine  immutableness,  —  the  integrity  of  those  attributes 
which  underlie  all  religion.  The  highest  view  of  Chris- 
tianity is  that  which  regards  it  as  the  religion  of  nature, 
as  the  constitutional  law  of  the  spiritual  universe,  as  cor- 
responding to  the  mathematical  laws  which  are  embodied 
in  the  material  universe,  —  absolute,  necessary,  eternal 
truth,  —  that  which  always  was  and  ever  will  be.  Rev- 
elation did  not  create  it,  any  more  than  Newton  created 
the  law  of  universal  gravitation,  or  Kepler  the  laws  of 
planetary  motion.  What  Newton  and  Kepler  were  to  the 
material  universe,  inspired  men  and  the  God-born  Saviour 
were  to  the  spiritual  universe.  Christianity  was  before 
the  Word  became  flesh,  before  Moses,  before  Abraham ; 
it  will  equally  be  when  in  the  open  vision  of  heaven 
the  written  Word  shall  be  no  longer  needed. 

This  is  the  view  which  I  propose  to  illustrate  in  the 
present  course  of  Lectures.  Natural  Religion  is  the  sub- 
ject assigned  to  me.  My  purpose  is  to  demonstrate  the 
identity  of  Christianity  with  natural  religion. 

The  residue  of  this  Lecture  will  be  occupied  with  the 
definition  of  the  term  religion^  with  the  distinction  ordi- 
narily made  between  natural  and  revealed  religion^  and 
with  the  sources  and  contents  of  natui'al  religion  as  dis 
tinguished  from  revealed. 


NATURAL  AND   REVEALED  RELIGION.  17 

As  to  the  meaning  of  religion^  its  derivation  gives  us 
but  doubtful  and  imperfect  guidance.  I  should  prefer,  in 
common  with  almost  all  grammarians  and  lexicographers, 
ancient  and  modern,  to  derive  it  from  religare^  to  rebind^ 
that  is,  to  bind  anew,  and  with  new  tenacity,  the  human 
spirit  to  its  Author  and  Father.  But  Cicero,  who  under- 
stood his  language  better  than  we  do,  and  whose  author- 
ity on  such  a  point  one  hardly  dares  to  disavow,  says  that 
religio  comes  from  relegere^  to  reperuse^  that  is,  to  ponder 
seriously  and  intently,  and  that  those  who  gave  their 
earnest  heed  to  things  relating  to  the  gods  were  called 
religious  [religiosi],  ex  relegendo?-  According  to  the  first 
of  these  derivations,  religion  is  the  science  of  our  rela- 
tions and  obligations  ;  according  to  the  second,  it  is  the 
science  of  the  things  which  lie  beneath  the  surface  and 
are  taken  note  of  only  by  the  heedful,  that  is,  of  things 
unseen  and  spiritual ;  —  two  definitions  which,  widely  as 
they  differ  in  their  terms,  coincide  as  to  their  contents. 
We  might  comprehend  the  two  in  one,  and  define  re- 
ligion to  be  the  science  of  our  unseen,  or  rather  our 
supersensual  relations.  When  we  discriminate  between 
the  religion  of  the  intellect  and  that  of  the  heart,  we 
denote  by  the  former  a  belief  in  those  relations,  by  the 
latter  a  state  of  character  in  accordance  with  that  belief. 
There  are  two  or  three  comments  to  be  made  on  this 
definition  before  proceeding  farther. 

1.  There  is  a  religion.  There  are  supersensual  truths 
and  facts.  Even  to  deny  the  being  of  God  or  the  exist- 
ence of  the  human  soul,  is  not  to  eliminate  religion  from 
the  circle  of  the  sciences.  Being  has  its  cause,  its  laws  ; 
there  are  reasons  for  the  existence  of  things  as  they  are  ; 
and  this  cause,  these  laws,  these  reasons,  are  religion. 

1  De  Natura  Deorum,  II.  28. 


18  CHRISTIANITY   THE   RELIGION   OF    NATURE. 

The  tlieory  which  substitutes  for  the  sublime  genealogy 
of  Holy  Writ,  with  its  anthem-like  close,  "  which  was  the 
son  of  Adam,  which  was  the  son  of  God,"  the  descent, 
or  rather  the  ascent,  of  man  from  the  animalcule,  the 
tadpole,  the  prone  quadruped,  the  ape,  if  true,  is  relig- 
ion, —  it  defines  our  unseen  relations. 

2.  There  is  but  one  religion.  It  is,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  impossible  that  there  should  be  more  than  one. 
If  any  specific  proposition  or  set  of  propositions  with  ref- 
erence to  our  unseen  relations  be  true,  any  other  propo- 
sition or  set  of  propositions  covering  the  same  ground 
must  be  false.  If  Christianity  be  true,  it  is  not  a  religion^ 
as  it  is  sometimes  called,  but  religion.  If  Judaism  also  be 
true,  it  is  so,  not  as  distinct  from,  but  as  coincident  with, 
Christianity,  —  the  one  religion,  to  which  it  can  bear 
only  the  relation  borne  by  tlie  j)art  to  the  whole.  If 
there  be  portions  of  truth  in  other  religious  systems,  they 
are  not  portions  of  other  religions,  but  portions  of  the 
one  religion,  which  somehow  became  incorporated  with 
fables  and  falsities. 

3.  This  one  religion,  whatever  it  be,  is  cognizable  by 
the  human  mind.  I  do  not  mean  that  all  supersensua) 
truth  is  thus  cognizable.  There  are  undoubtedly  aspects 
in  which  the  Divine  character  is  beyond  our  conception 
Nay,  the  mode  of  our  own  being  and  the  laws  of  finit^u 
existence  in  general  are  attainable  by  us  only  in  part, 
lint  our  relations  we  are  capable  of  knowing.  What 
God  is  to  us,  and  what  we  are  to  him,  we  are  competent 
to  understand.  Our  relations  to  one  another,  our  obliira- 
tions,  our  accountability,  our  destiny,  —  whether  it  be  an- 
nihilation or  continued  existence  after  death,  —  are  also 
subjects  of  our  possible  knowledge.  Let  it  not  be  said 
that  the  themes  of  religious  speculation  are  infinite,  and 


NATURAL  AND  REVEALED  RELIGION.  19 

therefore  incomprehensible.  We  admit  that  the  Infinite 
as  such  cannot  be  comprehended  by  a  finite  mind  ;  but 
the  finite  acts  and  manifestations  of  the  Infinite,  so  far 
from  being  incomprehensible,  constitute  in  the  last  anal- 
ysis all  our  knowledge. 

We  come  now  to  the  distinction  between  natural  and 
revealed  religion.  These  terms  designate,  not  different 
classes  of  truths,  but  the  different  methods  in  which 
religious  truth  becomes  known  to  mankind.  What  is 
ascertained  by  the  unaided  exercise  of  man's  own  powers 
is  called  natural  religion  ;  what  is  received  on  testimony 
is  called  revealed  religion.  But  the  latter  is  no  less 
natural  than  the  former.  The  fatherhood  of  God,  the 
forgiveness  of  sins,  mediation,  atonement,  retribution,  if 
truths,  are  truths  of  Divine  and  human  nature,  essential, 
everlasting  truths,  no  less  so  because  unknown,  formerly 
to  all,  and  still  to  the  greater  part  of  mankind,  than  if 
man  w^ere  born  to  the  knowledge  of  them.  The  Bible, 
indeed,  recognizes  the  validity  of  this  statement.  Its 
Gospel  is  "  the  everlasting  Gospel."  Its  promises  are 
''  the  eternal  purpose  of  God."  Its  redemption  sacrifice 
is  "  the  Lamb  slain  from  the  foundation  of  the  world." 

Our  first  inquiry  in  the  department  of  natural  religion 
is  as  to  the  sufficiency  of  man's  unaided  powers  to  arrive 
at  a  knowledo-e  of  relio-ious  truth.  If  this  knowledo;e  be 
attained,  it  must  be  attained  either  by  consciousness,  by 
intuition,  or  by  reasoning.  Let  us  consider  successively 
these  alleo;ed  sources  of  relimous  knowledo-e. 

I.  Consciousness.  We  are  conscious  only  of  our- 
selves, —  of  our  own  conditions  of  thought  and  feeling. 
Consciousness  gives  us  no  knowledge  of  anything  outside 
of  ourselves,   —no  objective  knowledge.     I  am  not  con- 


20  CHRISTIANITY   THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

scious  of  these  lights,  these  faces,  but  only  of  certain 
impressions  on  my  visual  organs,  which  I  know,  on 
grounds  independent  of  my  consciousness,  must  proceed 
from  gas-lights  and  human  countenances.  I  am  not 
conscious  of  the  existence  of  my  friend.  I  am  conscious 
merely  of  my  affection  for  him,  and  of  my  own  assurance 
that  the  affection  is  reciprocated.  His  existence  and  his 
regard  for  me  I  have  learned  through  other  sources.  I 
am  not  conscious  of  the  being  and  attributes  of  God. 
I  cannot  be  conscious  of  his  providence  or  of  his  love  to 
me.  My  own  consciousness  can  teach  me  nothing  con- 
cerning his  consciousness.  I  am  conscious  of  the  capacity 
of  reverence,  but  not  of  its  object,  —  of  the  conception 
of  infinity,  but  not  of  the  Infinite  Being.  When  I  learn 
from  sources  independent  of  my  consciousness  that  God 
is,  and  that  he  does  good  continually,  I  am  conscious  of 
love  and  gratitude  to  him. 

Again,  consciousness  is  of  the  present  moment,  not  of 
the  past  or  the  future.  I  am  not  conscious  of  what  I  said 
and  did  yesterday.  I  am  conscious  of  certain  remem- 
brances ;  but  those  remembrances,  though  of  the  past, 
constitute  my  present  state  of  mind,  —  the  past,  when  it 
loses  its  hold  on  my  memory,  drops  out  of  my  conscious- 
ness. Equally  little  can  I  be  conscious  of  the  future.  I 
may  be  conscious  of  hopes  more  or  less  well-grounded  ; 
but  I  am  full  as  vividly  conscious,  often,  of  fallacious 
hopes,  as  of  hopes  that  are  to  be  realized.  I  am  not 
conscious  of  immortality.  I  may  be  conscious  of  adapta- 
tion, desire,  longing  for  continued  existence  ;  but  this 
consciousness  is  no  more  the  evidence  of  its  own  realiza- 
tion, than  my  consciousness  of  adaptation,  desire,  longing 
for  some  office  or  emolument  that  in  no  wise  depends  on 
myself,  is  evidence  of  its  own  realization.     I  am,  indeed, 


NATURAL   AND    REVEALED   RELIGION.  21 

conscious  of  tastes,  loves,  joys,  aspirations,  which  are 
independent  of  my  material  organization,  and  which  may 
outlast  it,  —  I  therefore  am  not  conscious  that  I  shall 
wholly  die  when  the  body  dies.  But  equally  little  am  I 
conscious  that  I  shall  necessarily  survive  the  body.  On 
the  other  hand,  my  being  is  not  necessary.  I  began  to 
be.  A  few  years  ago  I  was  not.  It  is  no  more  neces- 
sary that  I  shou.ld  be  a  century  hence,  than  that  I  should 
have  been  a  century  ago. 

Consciousness,  then,  is  not  an  adequate  source  of  relig- 
ious knowledge. 

II.  How  is  it  with  intuition  ?  Intuition  is  spontane- 
ous belief,  —  the  perception  of  the  intellect.  There  are 
truths  which  we  discern  without  reasoning,  and  which 
cannot  be  demonstrated  by  reasoning.  Thus  we  know, 
but  cannot  prove,  that  a  part  is  less  than  the  whole ; 
that  a  straio-ht  line  is  the  shortest  distance  between  two 
points ;  that,  if  equal  quantities  be  taken  from  equal  quan- 
tities, the  remainders  will  be  equal.  In  like  manner  we 
know,  but  cannot  prove,  that  an  effect  implies  a  cause ; 
that  what  is  true  of  a  species  is  true  of  the  individu- 
als that  compose  it;  that  the  universal  experience  and 
testimony  of  mankind  are  a  valid  ground  of  belief. 
Truths  of  this  class  are  necessarily  developed  with  the 
development  of  the  mind ;  they  are  a  part  of  the  men- 
tal organism  ;  they  are  wanting  only  in  the  infant,  the 
idiot,  and  the  undeveloped  savage.  No  sane  mind  that 
has  attained  to  self-reflection  denies  or  doubts  them. 
Now  even  the  most  simple  religious  truths  are  obviously 
not  of  this  class.  There  have  been  well-developed  and 
highly-cultivated  minds  that  have  believed  in  no  god  and 
in  many  gods,  that  have  rejected  personal  immortality, 
that  have  acquiesced  in  the  most  grovelling  materialism. 


22  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

Nay,  among  the  philosophical  thinkers  and  writers  who 
profess  to  regard  intuition  as  the  prime  source  of  our 
supersensual  knowledge,  a  very  large  proportion  at  the 
present  moment  are  pantheists,  and  maintain  that  the 
human  soul  at  death  lapses  from  self-consciousness,  and 
is  reabsorbed  into  the  impersonal  soul  of  the  universe. 
On  the  other  hand,  those  who  think  that  they  have  an 
intuitive  perception  of  God  and  of  immortality  are,  with 
rare  exceptions,  persons  who  were  nurtured  under  Chris- 
tian ausj^ices,  whose  earliest  utterances  were  shaped  in 
prayer,  about  whose  infancy  there  hung  a  sacred  atmos- 
phere, and  who  drew  in  these  sublime  verities  with  the 
first  rudiments  of  knowledge. 

I  confess  that,  were  I  to  consult  my  own  present  con- 
sciousness, I  might  term  the  primal  truths  of  religion 
intuitive  ;  for  I  am  sure  that  with  me  they  depend  not 
on  reasoning  or  testimony,  nor  could  any  possible  weight 
of  argument  disprove  them.  But  then  those  truths  are 
inseparable  in  my  thought  from  a  Christian  mother's 
teachings,  and  from  the  dying  benediction  which  is  all 
that  I  remember  of  a  sainted  father  ;  and  there  are  other 
collateral  beliefs  which  I  know  to  be  questionable,  yet 
which  I  can  never  question,  —  which  are  to  me  equally 
like  intuitions,  because  they  came  to  me  through  the 
same  hallowed  medium.  And  when  I  reflect  on  the 
countless  multitude  of  keen,  clear-sighted  men  who  have 
lived  and  died  in  ignorance  of  the  one  God  and  the  life 
eternal,  and  on  the  less  numerous,  yet  by  no  means 
feeble,  host  of  vigorous  minds  that  have  seen  and  spurned 
the  full  light  of  evangelic  teaching  on  these  same  truths, 
have  denied  their  God,  and  have  embraced  annihilation 
as  their  certain  destiny,  I  cannot  regard  the  truths  of 
religion  as  necessary  or  intuitive  beliefs. 


NATURAL   AND   REVEALED   RELIGION.  23 

III.  There  remains  to  ))e  considered  reasoning  as  a 
source  of  religious  knowledge.  The  proper  province  of 
reasoning  is  to  perform  for  our  knowledge  or  belief  pre 
cisely  the  office  which  chemistry  performs  for  material 
substances,  that  of  analysis  or  decomposition.  It  ascer- 
tains the  contents,  the  component  parts,  of  what  we 
previously  knew  or  believed.  A  conclusion,  in  order  to 
be  valid,  must  be  contained  in  its  premises.  But  as;  to 
religious  truth,  our  premises  are  but  few  and  scanty ; 
for  what  underived  data  for  our  reasoning  as  to  themes 
which  exceed  the  universe  and  embrace  twin  eternities 
can  lie  within  the  observation  and  experience  of  us,  the 
children  of  yesterday  and  the  dust  ? 

Is  it  contended,  however,  that  induction  may  transcend 
the  bounds  of  observation  and  experience,  —  may  infer 
general  laws  from  the  repetition  of  phenomena,  universal 
truths  from  the  aggregation  of  particular  facts  ?  I  an- 
swer, that  induction  has  a  religious  basis,  presupposes  a 
fundamental  truth  of  religion,  and  therefore  cannot  be 
employed  to  establish  that  on  which  alone  it  depends. 
Induction  is  syllogism  with  the  immutable  attributes  of 
God  for  a  constant  term.  It  is  a  mode  of  reasonino; 
which,  though  so  obviously  valid  to  our  conceptions, 
never  entered  into  the  logic  of  Pagan  antiquity.  It  is 
entirely  the  growth  of  Christian  culture,  —  of  minds 
bathed  in  the  Christian  doctrine  of  a  universal  and  per- 
fect, harmonious  and  self-consistent  Providence. 

Very  nearly  the  same  statement  applies  to  the  ar- 
gument from  analogy.  This  too  rests  on  the  immuta- 
bleness  of  the  Divine  attributes.  On  no  other  ground 
can  we  infer,  where  observation  and  experience  do  not 
reach,  the  extension  of  the  laws  and  the  embodiment 
of   the    principles    wliich    we    trace    and   verify   within 


24  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

the  range  open  to  our  inspection.  Analogy,  therefore, 
like  induction,  presupposes  the  foundation-trutlis  of  re- 
ligion, and  cannot  be  employed  to  estabhsh  them.  In- 
deed, induction  and  analogy  coincide  entirely  with  syllo- 
gism in  this,  —  that  the  conclusion  is  contained  in  the 
premises.  When  we  infer  a  general  law,  or  an  analogous 
fact,  truth,  or  system,  we  simply  announce  what  is  in- 
cluded in  the  Divine  immutableness  which  constitutes 
the  major  premiss,  and  the  observed  or  known  fact,  or 
bundle  of  facts,  which  constitutes  the  minor  premiss. 

Moreover,  analogy,  thus  defined,  proves  nothing.  At 
the  most,  it  estabhshes  a  strong  probability,  but  never 
without  some  opening  for  doubt.  Analogy  is  resem- 
blance between  objects  of  different  classes,  or  between 
different  departments  of  knowledge.  When  up  to  a  cer- 
tain point  we  trace  a  resemblance  between  two  classes 
or  departments,  we  infer  that  the  resemblance  extends  to 
other  points  in  which  we  cannot  trace  it.  But  it  is 
always  possible  that  at  any  one  of  these  points  resem- 
blance ceases  and  difference  begins. 

Let  us  take  for  an  instance  the  immortahty  of  the 
soul.  Among  the  many  arguments  for  immortality  de- 
rived from  analogy,  the  following  seems  to  me  to  be  the 
strongest.  To  every  order  of  organized  and  sentient 
beings,  except  man,  there  is  open  a  sphere  of  devel- 
opment and  action  commensurate  with  its  capacities. 
Analogy  leads  us  to  beheve  that  man  too  has  sucli  a 
sphere.  JBut  he  has  it  not  in  this  world.  Here  there  is 
so  utter  a  disparity  as  to  be  ludicrous,  were  it  not  un- 
speakably sad,  between  his  vast  capacities  and  desires  on 
the  one  hand,  and  his  narrow  stage  and  brief  span  of 
being  on  the  other.  There  must  then,  we  infer,  be  a  life 
after  death,  which   shall   afford   to   man  the    scope  for 


NATURAL  AND  REVEALED  RELIGION.  25 

development  which  other  annuals  find  here.  Every 
other  terrestrial  existence  we  can  comprehend  and  round 
off  in  a  cycle,  all  whose  points  lie  within  the  sphere  of 
our  vision.  Man  is  not  complete  within  such  a  cycle. 
His  being,  therefore,  if  in  analogy  with  that  of  his  fellow- 
creatures,  must  reach  on  beyond  death,  and  if  beyond 
death,  why  not  forever  ?  To  regard  death  as  the  extinc- 
tion of  his  being  makes  his  existence  a  solitary  phenome- 
non, to  which  nothing  in  the  entire  universe  corresponds. 
This  reasoning  has  indeed  a  high  probability  in  its  favor, 
vet  it  falls  far  short  of  certainty ;  for  man  differs  from  all 
other  sentient  beings  so  widely,  and  in  so  many  particu- 
lars, as  to  render  it  at  least  possible  that  this  very  incom- 
pleteness of  his  existence  may  be  one  of  the  points  of 
difference. 

Again,  analogy  often  points  equally  to  two  opposite 
conclusions.  Thus,  on  this  very  subject  of  immortality, 
how  many  hopeful  analogies  can  we  cite,  —  in  the  cat- 
erpillar whose  death  is  but  a  new  and  higher  birth,  — 
in  the  grain  of  wheat  reappearing  in  the  sheaf,  —  in 
the  annual  resurrection-fiat  that  restores  the  winter's 
desolation,  and  renders  back  to  tree  and  shrub  a  life 
which  had  seemed  extinct,  yet  never  was  more  vigorous 
than  when  it  gave  no  sign  !  When  in  our  happy  and 
hopeful  hours  we  throw  out  our  unbuttressed  arch  of 
dreamy  speculation  toward  heaven,  these  seem  more 
than  mere  poetic  fancies ;  they  become  symbols,  proph- 
ecies, pledges  of  the  life  eternal.  But  when  the  shadow 
of  death  falls  heavily  around  us  ;  when  those  go  from  us 
who  carry  with  them  a  solid  portion  of  our  own  being ; 
when  we  count  the  rapidly  stealing  years,  and  feel  that 
our  noon  has  passed,  and  we  are  gliding  down  the 
western  slope  of  our  brief  day ;  when  the  fingers  of 
2 


26  CHRISTIANITY   THE  RELIGION   OF   NATURE. 

disease  are  fumbling  at  our  heart-strings,  —  then  a 
troop  of  sad  analogies  force  themselves  upon  us.  We 
think  of  the  blighted  buds  and  germs,  immeasurably 
more  numerous  than  the  fructifying,  of  the  destruction 
with  no  resurrection  in  many  departments  of  organized 
being,  of  the  loss  of  identity  in  so  many  cases  where 
there  is  a  continuity  of  life ;  and  these  resemblances  are 
melancholy  presages  of  victorious  death  and  a  devouring 
grave.  In  fine,  there  is  no  form  of  belief,  no  hope,  no 
fear,  which  may  not  fortify  itself  by  analogies.  Analogy, 
therefore,  proves  nothing,  and  cannot  be  a  trustworthy 
source  of  religious  knowledge. 

What,  then,  is  the  office  of  analogy  ?  It  serves,  in  the 
first  place,  to  guide  us  in  the  investigation  of  truth,  and, 
secondly,  to  answer  objections. 

1.  To  guide  us  in  the  investigation  of  truth.  The 
mere  wish  to  discern  truth  is  fruitless.  Nature  has  but 
two  answers  —  yes  and  no  —  for  her  inquirer  ;  and 
whether  he  ever  gets  a  yes,  depends  entirely  on  his  skill 
in  shaping  his  questions.  What  shall  we  ask  ?  How 
shall  we  direct  our  inquiries  in  an  unexplored  field  ? 
Analogy  must  frame  our  questit)ns,  must  suggest  what 
we  may  reasonably  expect  to  find.  The  likeness  of 
things  known  and  familiar  may  occur  in  things  new  and 
unexplored,  and  it  is  for  this  likeness  that  we  are  to 
look  and  ask,  seeking,  in  what  is  as  yet  unknown,  facts, 
principles,  and  laws  analogous  to  those  with  which  we 
are  already  conversant.  Analogy  thus  carries  the  torch 
before  us  through  the  dim  aisles  of  the  temple  of  truth. 

2.  The  second  office  of  analogy  is  to  remove  objection? 
which  we  cannot  answer,  against  facts  or  truths  in  whost 
behalf  we  have  a  competent  weight  of  positive  evidence 
Of  course,  to  answer  objections  is  the  readiest  way  of 


NATURAL   AND   REVEALED   RELIGION.  27 

removing  them.  But  often,  from  their  very  nature,  or 
from  the  finiteness  of  our  knowledge,  they  do  not  admit 
of  being  answered.  In  this  case  they  are  adequately 
met,  if  we  can  show  that  similar  and  equal  objections  lie 
against  facts  or  truths  which  all  men  regard  as  absolutely 
certain.  Thus  against  the  evangelic  history  infidels  urge 
some  objections  which  we  must  admit  to  be  unanswera- 
ble ;  but  if  we  can  show  that  precisely  the  same  objec- 
tions lie  against  portions  of  history  which  no  sane  man 
denies  or  doubts,  analogy  proves  these  objections  utterly 
futile  and  nugatory,  even  though  they  be  unanswerable. 
For  instance,  in  the  book  entitled  "  Historic  Doubts  rel- 
ative to  Napoleon  Bonaparte,"  Archbishop  Whately, 
with  consummate  skill  and  yet  with  transparent  fairness 
and  honesty,  applies  to  the  several  Memoirs  of  Napoleon 
and  Histories  of  his  times  precisely  the  principles  on 
which  Hume  and  infidels  of  his  school  had  impugned  the 
authenticity  of  the  Gospels  ;  and  on  those  principles  he 
proves  that  there  is  not  a  leading  fact  of  Napoleon's  life 
which  does  not  admit  of  the  gravest  doubt,  and  yet  more, 
that  in  all  probability  no  such  man  as  Napoleon  ever 
existed.  Now,  as  this  line  of  argument  could  shake  no 
man's  belief  in  Napoleon's  existence  and  history,  rea- 
soning from  analogy,  we  conclude  that  the  same  line  of 
argument  has  no  validity  against  the  Gospels. 

We  have  a  masterly  specimen  of  this  use  of  the  argu- 
ment from  analogy  in  the  fifteenth  chapter  of  St.  Paul's 
First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians.  He,  first,  from  the 
resurrection  of  Christ  proves  that  of  all  men,  shows  that 
Jesus  rose  expressly  as  the  type  and  pledge  of  universal 
immortality,  and  rests  the  whole  positive  stress  of  his 
reasoning  on  this  glorious  fact,  attested  by  a  cloud  of  wit- 
nesses, most  of  whom  were  livinoj  when  he  wrote.     But 


28  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

then  comes  the  sceptical  inquiry,  "  How  can  these  things 
be  ?  How  are  the  dead  raised,  and  with  what  bodies  ?  " 
In  reply,  he  exhibits  in  the  outward  universe  instances 
of  the  resurrection  of  virtually  the  same  body  in  a  differ- 
ent form,  as  in  the  case  of  the  kernel  of  wheat,  which, 
without  losing  its  identity,  reappears  in  a  guise  unlike  that 
m  wliich  it  was  thrown  into  the  ground.  By  this  analogy 
he  shows  that  there  is  in  the  annual  course  of  nature  a 
similar  fact,  known  and  read  of  all  men,  multiplied  myri- 
ads of  times,  in  itself  equally  strange  with  the  resurrection 
of  the  dead,  and  encompassed  by  the  same  difficulties. 

Such  are  the  alleged  sources  of  natural  religion,  — 
consciousness,  which  cannot  transcend  self;  intuition, 
which,  strictly  speaking,  does  not  extend  to  religious 
truth  ;  reasoning,  which  analyzes  the  previous  items  of 
our  knowledge  without  adding  to  them. 

How  much  may  be  derived  from  these  doubtful  and 
precarious  sources  ?  As  regards  the  Divine  Being,  man 
could  hardly  fail  to  reach  a  belief  in  intelligence  and 
power  higher  than  his  own.  Nature  bears  unnumbered 
marks  of  design,  and  design  implies  a  designer  ;  while 
the  immense  forces  whose  equilibrium  or  conffict  works 
out  each  successive  form  and  stage  of  design  in  nature 
lead  irresistibly  to  the  attributing  of  vast  power,  con- 
joined with  skill  and  wisdom,  to  the  designing  mind  or 
minds.  But  here  the  argument  from  design  ceases.  It 
does  not  prove  an  infinite  creator  ;  for  the  universe  is 
finite,  and  may  have  had  a  finite  author.  It  does  not 
prove  the  moral  attributes  of  the  Creator  ;  for  the  agen« 
cies  of  nature  lend  their  force  to  mischief  and  evil,  — 
they  are  charged  to  execute  the  malicious  purposes  of  the 
wicked,  —  they  are  fraught  with  ministries  of  woe  to  the 
wretched. 


NATURAL  AND  REVEALED  RELIGION.  2^ 

Yet  more,  the  argument  from  design  does  not  establish 
the  unity  or  the  personahty  of  God.  The  harmony  of  na- 
ture is  not  readily  perceived.  Objects  appear  in  isolated 
groups  ;  events  in  isolated  cycles.  There  is  war  among 
the  elements.  The  sun  ripens,  the  swollen  river  devas- 
tates, the  harvest-field.  The  rain  fills,  the  hot  breath  of 
summer  dries,  the  fountain  and  the  lake.  Nature  seems 
a  vast  battle-ground  between  opposing  designs  and  antag- 
onistic forces.  Hence  the  human  mind,  constrained  to 
believe  in  the  existence  of  superhuman  wisdom  and 
power,  resorts  to  polytheism,  and  cantons  out  the  crea- 
tion into  separate  provinces,  each  with  its  tutelar  divinity. 

Polytheism  is  the  earliest  stage  of  natural  theology. 
With  the  progress  of  knowledge  philosophy  has  birth. 
Contemplative  minds  awake  to  a  sense  of  pervading 
system  and  order  in  the  material  universe.  At  this  point 
speculation  takes  one  of  two  directions.  It  either,  still 
impressed  with  the  perpetual  conflict  of  good  and  evil, 
happiness  and  misery,  in  the  world,  resorts  to  the  Oriental 
dualism,  and  conceives  of  a  supremely  good  and  a  su- 
premely evil  principle,  who  share  the  sovereignty  of  the 
universe ;  or  else,  as  in  the  Greek  philosophy,  it  blends 
inseparably  the  shaping  and  benignant  spirit  with  the 
brute  and  resisting  matter  through  ■  which  it  struggles  for 
an  ever  more  complete  and  full  manifestation  of  itself,  and 
thus  frames  an  essentially  pantheistic  theology.  There 
is  reason  to  doubt  whether  natural  religion,  where  the 
light  of  revelation  has  not  preceded  it,  has  ever  tran- 
scended these  forms  of  belief ;  and  it  is  a  significant  fact, 
that  in  tKe  present  age  the  philosophy  which  ignores 
revelation  constantly  tends  to  return  to  pantheism,  so 
that  in  the  speculations  of  many  of  the  profoundest 
thinkers  of  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries  the 
idea  of  a  personal  God,  the  object  of  reverence,  worship, 


30  CHRISTIANITY   THE   RELIGION    OF  NATURE. 

and  prayer,  is  wholly  eliminated,  —  nature  is  God,  man 
is  God  become  self-conscious,  everything  is  God,  and 
God  is  everything  or  —  nothing. 

As  regards  a  future  life,  by  virtue  of  intense  longings, 
lame  analogies,  and  inconclusive  reasonings,  natural  re- 
ligion attains  to  the  conjecture,  the  strong  hope  of  a  con- 
tinued existence  ;  but  in  no  instance  has  it  reached  a 
confidence  sufficient  for  consolation  in  the  severest  stress 
of  need,  or  adequate  to  furnish  rules  and  motives  for 
the  conduct  of  life.  Indeed,  Cicero,  in  his  attempt  to 
prove  immortality,  is  careful  to  show  that,  if  his  reason- 
ing is  faulty,  annihilation  is  no  great  evil ;  ^  and  when 
his  daughter  dies,  he  confesses  that  he  has  lost  all  faith  in 
liis  own  arguments.^  Nay,  the  strongest  argument  for 
immortality  that  has  come  down  to  us  from  the  ancient 
world  is  based  on  the  assumption  of  the  past  eternity  of 
the  human  soul,  and  may  be  compressed  into  the  simple 
formula,  —  "  That  which  had  no  beginning  can  have  no 
end."  3 

As  to  the  duties  a^rowino;  out  of  man's  relations  to  God 
and  his  fellow-beings,  they  are  derived  in  part  from  the 
essential  conditions  of  life  and  of  society,  so  that  they 
could  not  remain  wholly  unknown  ;  while,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  comprehension  of  their  entire  extent  and  their 
mutual  interdependence  can  result  only  from  those  clear 
and  adequate  conceptions  of  religious  truth  which  cannot 
be  reached  by  man's  unaided  powers.  Accordingly,  while 
the  ancients  promulgated  many  sound  moral  precepts, 
there  is  hardly  one  of  them  who  has  not  impressed  his 
sanction  on  some  atrocious  immorality.  Even  the  divine 
Plato  recommends  the  murder  of  feeble  and  sickly  in- 
fants, expressly  allows  drunkenness  at  the  feasts  of  Bac- 

1  Tusc.  Quoest.  I.  5  -  8.  2  Ep.  ad  Atticum,  XH.  14. 

8  Plato's  PhiBdo,  47-58. 


NATURAL   AND   REVEALED  RELIGION.  31 

chus,  and  authorizes  some  of  the  worst  forms  of  Hcen- 
tiousness. 

I  admit  that  modern  deists  have  in  numerous  instances 
maintained  a  pure  and  lofty  personal  monotheism,  have 
expressed  firm  faith  in  immortality,  and  have  inculcated 
and  practised  the  severest  morality.  But  I  cannot  forget 
that  they  were  educated  as  Christians,  and  their  subse- 
quent unbelief  could  not  shut  out  the  light  that  came  to 
them  from  the  Sun  of  righteousness.  To  determine  the 
utmost  amount  of  religious  truth  that  man  can  attain  in- 
dependently of  revelation,  we  must  interrogate  minds 
that  can  have  derived  nothing  from  revelation.  And  we 
certainly  cannot  err  in  assuming  that  classic  antiquity  had 
reached  the  cHmax  of  extra-Christian  culture.  In  all  but 
their  religious  aspects  the  Greek  and  the  Roman  mind 
transcended  the  powers  of  the  modern  intellect,  and  have 
left  us,  in  poetry,  in  history,  in  philosophy,  and  in  some  of 
the  fine  arts,  models  which  we  can  emulate,  but  cannot 
equal,  giving  color,  indeed,  to  the  belief  that  the  early 
ages  possessed  in  mental  force  and  acumen  and  in  cre- 
ative genius  the  same  pre-eminence  over  modern  times 
which  we  cannot  but  recognize  in  the  physical  proportions 
and  strength  of  the  ancients.  But  even  Plato  falls  short 
of  the  clear  conception  of  one  personal  Deity,  and  there 
hangs  ever  about  his  theology  a  pantheistic  haze.  Even 
Seneca,  with  an  almost  perfect  system  of  ethics,  fails  to 
enter  into  the  mystery  of  sorrow,  cowers  under  the 
inevitable  burdens  and  sufferings  of  humanity,  and  rec- 
ommends that  recourse  to  suicide  which  he  ihustrated  by 
his  own  example.  Even  the  dying  Socrates,  though  he 
trusts  that  he  is  going  to  the  society  of  good  men,  warns 
his  friends  not  to  be  too  confident  in  a  matter  attended 
by  so  much  uncertainty. 


LECTURE    II 


REVELATION. 


In  inv  last  Lecture,  I  considered  the  sources  of  relimous 
knowledge  wliicli  are  open  to  man  through  the  unaided 
exercise  of  his  own  powers.  I  propose  this  evening  to 
illustrate  the  place  and  office  of  Revelation  with  refer- 
ence to  Natural  Religion. 

Revelation  denotes  unveiling^  —  uncovering.  It  implies 
the  previous  existence  of  that  which  is  uncovered,  or 
made  known.  It  excludes  the  idea  of  newness,  of  in- 
vention, of  recent  creation.  Watt  invented  the  steam- 
engine,  and  Arkwright  the  spinning-jenny,  which  had  no 
previous  existence  ;  —  Galileo  revealed  the  satellites  of 
Jupiter,  which  are  as  old  as  the  planet  in  its  present 
form,  and,  according  to  the  nebular  hypothesis,  older  ; 
Harvey  revealed  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  which  had 
been  an  unrevealed  fact  through  all  the  antecedent  ages 
of  human  history.  Joseph  Smith,  his  associates  and 
successors,  created  what  is  peculiar  to  Mormonism  ;  Ma- 
homet created  those  portions  of  Mahometanism  that  he 
did  not  borrow,  which  are  not  truth,  because  they  are  the 
pi'oduct  of  his  own  mind :  we  Christians  believe  that 
Jesus  Christ  revealed  what  is  peculiar  to  Christianity, 
which  is  truth,  because  it  was  not  the  offspring  of  his 
OAvn  mind  or  age,  but  the  disclosure  of  what  was  in  the 
beginning  in  the  mind  of  God,  and  in  the  nature,  duty, 
and  destiny  of  man. 


REVELATION.  ^  33 

We  thus  see  tliat  it  is  only  natural  religion  which  can 
furnish    the    material    for    revelation.       The    distinction 
between  natural  and  revealed  religion  is  not  essential, 
but  modal,  —  referring  not  to  the  substance,  but  to  the 
means   of  our  knowledge.     The  clown   on   the   hill-top 
and   the   astronomer   in   his    observatory  see    the    same 
heavens  ;  but  where  the  former  beholds  only  glittering 
points,  the  latter  can  trace  the  diversified  disc  of  every 
planet,  and  can  measure  spaces  and  motions  as  if  he  trod 
the  celestial  paths  with  his  chain  and  compass.     In  like 
manner,  we  can  with  the  naked  eye  of  reason  and  self- 
spun  philosophy  discern  and  know  little  of  the  spiritual 
universe,  little  even  of  our  own  nature,  relations,  and 
destiny  ;  but  when  Christ  puts  the  telescope  to  our  eyes, 
and    the  measuring-rod   in  our   hands,  we  can  see  and 
measure  the  things  of  which  we  had  before  been  dimly 
cognizant  or  wholly  ignorant.     The  revealed  religion  of 
the  earth  is  the  natural  religion  of  heaven,  —  would  be 
our  natural  religion,  had  we  sufficiently  comprehensive 
and  penetrating  minds  to  make  it  so,  —  will  be  our  nat- 
ural religion  when  the  scales  shall  fall  from  our  eyes  in 
dying.     Christianity,  if  true,  is  the  fundamental  law  of 
spiritual  being,  as  constant  as  the  laws  of  nature,  as  un- 
changeable as  the  circuits  of  the  stars.     It  is  the  physi- 
ology of  the  divine  and  the  human  spirit,  the  geography 
of  the  world  of  probation,  duty,  and  accountability  in 
which  we  live,  the   astronomy  of  those  upper  heavens 
where  are    the  everlasting  mansions   of  the   redeemed. 
This  physiology  it  is  of  immeasurable  importance  for  man 
to  know,  that  he  may  act  worthily  of  his  nature,  —  that 
he  may  not  dwarf  it,  or  debase  it,  or  leave  it  undevel- 
oped.    This   geograi3hy  it  profoundly   concerns  him   to 
learn,  that  he  may  use  the  world   as   not   abusing   it. 


84  CHRISTIANITY   THE   RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

With  this  astronomy  it  is  for  his  highest  interest  and 
happiness  tliat  he  become  conversant,  that  from  disap- 
pointment, and  sorrow,  and  the  death-shadow,  when  the 
whole  lower  firmament  is  darkened,  he  may  lift  his  eyes 
to  those  unfadino'  lio;hts  that  burn  around  the  eternal 
throne.  But,  as  I  showed  you  in  my  last  Lecture,  this  is 
a  department  in  which  man  has  not  at  his  own  command 
the  requisite  means  of  research  and  sources  of  knowl- 
edge. I  therefore  maintain,  that  not  only  the  contents 
of  revelation,  but  the  fact  of  revelation,  belongs  to  nat- 
ural religion ;  that  is,  that  revelation  is  not  only  an  histor- 
ical fact,  but  a  fact  that  was  to  have  been  anticipated  on 
a  priori  grounds,  —  on  grounds  connected  with  the  na- 
ture of  man  and  of  God. 

I.  For,  first,  revelation  is  a  postulate  ofhuman  nature. 
Its  subjects  are  such  as  necessarily  command  the  curi- 
osity of  the  mind  only  a  little  raised  above  a  mere  animal 
existence.  Religion  comprises  a  department  in  which 
every  thoughtful  man  perceives  that  there  is  something 
to  be  known,  —  real,  objective  truth.  There  comes  up 
from  the  earliest  ages  that  have  left  us  their  record  the 
cry  of  the  inquiring,  longing  soul,'  "  O  that  I  knew 
where  I  might  find  Him  !  Wherewith  shall  I  approach 
Him,  and  how  shall  I  order  my  ways  before  Him  ?  .  If  a 
man  die,  shall  he  live  again?"  And  with  this  cry  comes 
the  thought  of  a  revelation,  as  the  only  means  by  which 
it  can  be  answered.  The  sense  of  this  need  found  voice 
repeatedly  among  the  philosophers  of  classic  antiquity, 
lamblichus,  in  describing  the  religious  belief  of  Py- 
thagoras and  his  followers,  writes  :  ''  It  is  manifest  that 
those  things  are  to  be  done  which  are  pleasing  to  God ; 
but  what  they  are  it  is  not  easy  to  know,  except  man 
were  taught  them  by  God  himself,  or  by  some   person 


REVELATION.  35 

who  had  received  them  from  God,  or  obtained  the  knowl- 
edge of  them  throuo-h  some  divine  means."  ^  There  is  a 
very  striking  passage  in  one  of  Plato's  Dialogues,  from 
which  it  would  appear  that  he,  or  Socrates,  in  whose 
name  he  writes,  anticipated  a  revelation  as  near  at  hand. 
Socrates  meets  one  of  his  disciples  going  to  a  temple  to 
pray,  tries  to  convince  him  that  he  knows  neither  how  to 
pray  nor  what  to  pray  for,  and  then  adds  :  "It  seems 

best  to  me  that  we  keep  quiet It  is  absolutely 

necessary  that  we  wait  with  patience,  till  we  know  cer- 
tainly how  we  ought  to  behave  toward   God  and  man. 

Till  that  time  arrives,  it  may  be  safer  to  avoid 

offering  sacrifices,  of  which  you  know  not  whether  they 
are  acceptable  to  God  or  not."  ^  But  the  most  remarka- 
ble passage  of  all  is  in  the  reply  to  his  arguments  for 
immortality  put  by  Plato  into  the  mouth  of  one  of  the 
disciples  of  Socrates  :  "  I  agree  with  you,  Socrates, 
that  to  discover  the  certain  truth  of  these  things  in  this 
life  is  absolutely  impossible,  or  at  least  very  difficult. 
Yet  not  to  inquire  into  what  may  be  said  about  them,  or 
to  desist  from  our  inquiry  before  we  have  carried  it  as  far 
as  possible,  is  the  mark  of  a  mean  and  low  spirit.  We 
ought,  therefore,  by  all  means  to  do  one  of  these  two 
things,  —  either  by  hearkening  to  instruction  and  by  our 
own  dihgent  study  to  find  out  the  truth,  or,  if  this  be  im- 
possible, then  to  fix  upon  that  which  to  human  reason 
appears  best  and  most  probable,  and  to  make  this  our 
raft,  Avhile  we  sail  through  life,  unless  we  could  have  a 
more  sure  and  safe  conveyance,  such  as  some  divine  com- 
7nunication  would  be."  ^     Similar  expressions  might   be 

1  EEepi  Tov  HvdayopiKOv  /3iou,  Chap.  28. 

«  Second  Alcibiades,  22,  23. 

8  Phsedo,  78.    \6yov  deiov  tlvok. 


86  CHRISTIANITY   THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

multiplied,  showing  that  the  religion  of  nature  is  through- 
out an  interrogative  religion,  which  yearns  for  an  answer 
to  its  questions  from  a  more  than  human  wisdom. 

In  accordance  with  this  view,  we  find  a  universal 
appetency  for  revelation.  Sacred  books,  oracles,  proph- 
ets, have  always  been  received  with  a  ready  faith.  Chris- 
tian missionaries,  in  earlier  and  later  times,  while  they 
have  often  encountered  insuperable  obstacles,  have  left 
no  record  of  antecedent  scepticism  as  to  the  fact  of  a 
revelation.  On  the  other  hand,  the  very  declaration  that 
they  were  bearers  of  a  divine  message  has  in  innumera- 
ble instances  opened  to  its  reception  minds  and  hearts, 
which  would  have  been  stubbornly  closed  against  such 
teachmgs  as  they  might  have  promulgated  on  their  own 
authority. 

I  know,  indeed,  that  modern  deists  have  disclaimed 
revelation  as  a  postulate  of  the  human  soul.  But  why  ? 
Because  they  have  enriched  their  naturalism  with  the 
spoils  of  Christianity.  Were  we  carefully  to  explore  a 
vast  and  curiously  furnished  subterranean  chamber  by 
the  light  of  a  torch,  we  might  on  a  second  visit  dis- 
cern the  shape  and  size  of  every  object  by  the  few  and 
straggling  rays  of  light  from  the  cave's  mouth.  But  let 
another  party  enter  for  the  first  time  without  a  torch, 
they  would  stumble  at  every  step,  and  would  be  able  to 
distinguish  nothing  by  the  same  light  by  which  we  had 
seen  everything.  Modern  deists  in  Christian  countries 
had  the  light  of  the  torch,  before  they  deemed  them- 
selves independent  of  it.  The  ancients,  groping  from 
the  first  in  darkness,  longed  for  the  torch,  and  despaired 
of  finding  their  way  without  it. 

II.  There  is  antecedent  reason  in  the  nature  of  things 
to  suppose  that  the  postulate  of  the  human  soul  for  divine 


REVELATION.  87 

revelation  would  be  satisfied.  Unless  the  religious  crav- 
ing be  an  exception,  there  is  no  demand  of  man  tliat  has 
not  its  answer,  no  want  that  is  not  supplied,  no  yearning 
that  does  not  find  its  response.  Hunger  levies  contribu- 
tions on  every  department  of  nature,  and  there  is  no  zone 
or  climate  that  yields  not  food  fit  for  its  inhabitants.  For 
thirst  there  are  springs  even  in  the  desert,  and  reservoirs 
in  the  arid  rock.  For  man's  social  cravings,  provision 
is  made  in  the  essential  laws  and  conditions  of  birth  and 
nurture,  and  in.  the  necessities  and  mutual  dependences 
of  even  the  lowest  types  of  savage  life.  For  the  still  pro- 
founder  need  of  loving  and  being  loved,  there  is  no  rela- 
tion between  human  beings  which  has  not  its  instinctive 
and  spontaneous  action  upon  the  emotional  nature,  so 
that  in  the  whole  commerce  of  domestic  and  social  life 
there  is  a  perpetual  interweaving  of  more  and  more  fine 
and  delicate  fibres  of  sympathy  and  fellow-feeling.  The 
same  correlation  of  demand  and  supply  pervades  the 
entire  realm  of  science  and  knowledo-e.  No  class  of 
objects  or  phenomena,  however  recondite,  is  presented 
to  our  curiosity,  without  means  of  ascertaining  its  nature, 
laws,  sources,  and  causes.  Among  things  observed  and 
experienced  no  question  is  ever  asked,  and  asked  per- 
sistently, for  which  the  answer  is  not  lodged  within 
the  seeker's  reach.  How  profound  are  the  researches, 
how  severely  accurate  the  discoveries,  constantly  made 
as  to  objects  that  might  seem  too  vast  for  comprehen- 
sion, or  too  minute  for  cognizance,  or  too  remote  for 
precise  measurement  and  analysis  !  We  mark  the  per- 
turbations of  Uranus,  detect  the  metallic  particles  in  the 
atmosphere  of  the  sun,  trace  organic  life  back  to  its  infin- 
itesimal type  and  outbudding.  Meanwhile,  here  is  our 
instinct  of  reverence,  which  has  no  definite  object,  —  our 


88  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF   NATURE. 

inquiry  into  supersensual  truth,  wliicli  returns  to  us  as 
void,  as  unsatisfied,  as  in  the  infancy  of  the  race,  —  our 
earnest  onlooking,  before  which  hangs  death,  no  less  than 
ever  a  dense,  impenetrable  veil. 

Not  only  are  the  soul's  rehgious  wants  profound  and 
intense,  but  mere  mental  progress  and  cultivation,  so 
far  from  meeting  them,  only  render  them  more  utterly 
hopeless.  Thus  in  the  ruder  days  of  Athens  and  Rome 
there  was  doubtless  a  sincere,  and  to  a  certain  extent  a 
satisfying,  faith  in  the  gods  of  the  popular  mythology  and 
in  the  fables  about  Elysium  ;  while  with  the  growth  of 
knowledge,  religion  on  the  one  hand  rationalized  itself 
into  pantheism,  and  on  the  other  attenuated  itself  into 
atheism. 

These  religious  wants  of  man,  as  I  showed  you  in  my 
last  Lecture,  are  not  susceptible  of  satisfaction  through 
the  agency  of  the  human  mind,  with  the  instruments  of 
inquiry  that  natively  belong  to  it.  But  their  very  ex- 
istence authorizes  the  assurance  that  they  are  satisfied 
somehow  or  somewhere.  Now  revelation  is  to  the  relig- 
ious wants  what  food  is  to  hunger,  water  to  thu'st,  kin- 
dred to  the  loving  heart,  scientific  truth  to  the  inquiring 
intellect. 

III.  There  is,  also,  in  the  nature  of  God  antecedent 
reason  to  suppose  that  he  would  have  made  a  revelation. 
I  will  for  the  present  exclude  from  my  argument  those 
fatherly  attribvites  of  the  Divine  character,  for  which  we 
are  indebted,  as  I  think,  to  revelation,  and  which,  there- 
fore, we  cannot  employ  in  proof  of  a  revelation  without 
reasoning  m  a  circle.  I  will  simply  assume,  what  the 
marks  of  contrivance  in  the  universe  certainly  demon- 
strate, creative  design,  that  is,  creative  intelligence  ;  and 
I  will  suppose  that  this  intelligence  belongs  to  a  single 


REVELATION.  39 

divine  mind,  though  my  argument  would  remam  un- 
affected on  the  hypothesis  of  duahsm,  or  even  of  poly- 
theism. 

God  made  man,  —  made  him  not  mere  brute  exist- 
ence, but  mind,  soul,  will,  affection.  He  has  made  each 
human  mind  capable  of  communion  with  other  created 
minds,  so  that  it  can  take  cognizance  of  their  thoughts 
and  emotions,  and  can  receive  from  them  knowledge, 
sentiment,  and  impulse.  Is  it  conceivable  that  he  should 
have  shut  out  from  himself  the  very  avenues  of  com- 
munion which  he  has  opened  to  created  spirits, — that  he 
should  have  put  into  the  hands  of  his  creatures  keys 
with  which  they  can  unlock  every  chamber  of  intellect, 
fancy,  and  feeling,  and  can  with  intimate  consciousness 
pervade,  as  it  were,  the  whole  of  one  another's  inward 
being,  —  and  that,  as  regards  himself,  he  should  have 
locked  every  door  and  thrown  away  the  keys  ?  The 
power  to  open  every  soul  to  the  direct  communion  of 
every  other  soul  includes  and  implies  the  power  to  open 
every  soul  to  his  own  direct  communion.  The  fact  that 
he  has  thus  established  commmiion  between  soul  and 
soul,  renders  it  probable  that  he  has  also  established  com- 
munion between  himself  and  the  souls  of  men. 

Still  further,  we  can  hardly  conceive  of  God's  having 
created  intelligent  minds,  without  the  will  to  become 
himself  an  object  of  their  intelligence,  — to  be  distinctly 
recognized  and  known  by  them.  So  far  is  the  idea  of 
revelation  from  being  unnatural,  that  any  mode  of  com- 
munication would  seem  more  natural  than  eternal  silence. 
To  my  mind,  while  some  of  the  early  Scriptural  narra- 
tives savor  so  much  of  anthropomorphism,  that  I  cannot 
object  to  a  somewhat  free  and  allegorical  interpretation 
of  them,  the  hteral  sense  —  according  to  which  the  voice 


40  CHRISTIANITY   THE  EELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

of  the  Almighty  was  heard  in  the  garden  in  the  cool  ot 
the  day,  was  listened  and  replied  to  by  the  first-born 
among  men,  was  made  audible  to  the  patriarch  in  his 
tent,  and  to  Samuel  in  his  bed  hard  by  the  ark  of  the 
covenant —  has  a  naturalness,  a  reality,  a  lifelikeness,  O, 
immeasurably  greater  than  the  heartless  theory  accord- 
ing to  which  the  Creator  has  abandoned  his  offspring  to 
perpetual  orphanhood,  has  cut  himself  off  forever  from 
their  conscious  intercourse  with  him,  has  given  them  no 
authentic  and  incontrovertible  tokens  of  his  being,  his 
nature,  and  their  relation  to  him. 

Again,  man  must  have  been  created  with  some  definite 
design  or  purpose  on  the  part  of  the  Creator,  as  to  the 
development  and  exercise  of  his  moral  and  active  powers. 
It  is  impossible  that  God  should  not  have  a  will  as  to  the 
dispositions  and  deeds  of  his  intelligent  offspring,  and 
laws  which  he  would  have  them  obey.  On  all  the  rest 
of  creation  he  has  impressed  his  will  and  law,^  and  all 
things  are  obedient  thereunto.  Inanimate  nature  is 
bound  by  adamantine  chains  of  immutable  law.  The 
fiat,  "  Hitherto  shalt  thou  come,  but  no  further,"  throbs 
in  every  pulse  of  air  and  ocean,  in  the  waves  of  light  and 
sound,  in  growth,  vicissitude,  catastrophe,  and  disintegra- 
tion. Instinct  in  animals  attends  and  attests  design,  and 
not  one  of  them  can  transcend  or  fall  short  of  his  mani- 
fest place,  office,  and  purpose  in  the  uniA'erse.  Man 
alone  has  an  autonomic  will,  the  power  of  choice  between 
good  and  evil,  between  parallel  courses  of  seeming  good, 
between  like,  diverse,  or  opposite  aims.  Man  alone  is 
capable  of  obeying  or  disobeying  law.  And  no  one 
doubts  that  there  are  laws  in  obeying  which  he  fulfils 
the  purpose,  works  out  the  destiny,  for  which  he  was 
created.     But  he  is  capable  of  attaining  to  the  knowledg. 


REVELATION.  41 

of  those  laws  only  approximately  and  imperfectly.  He 
had  a  fair  opportunity  and  an  open  field,  rooni^  for  the 
trial  of  all  kinds  of  moral  experiments,  ample  time  for 
ascertaining  the  right  and  the  good,  in  the  thousands  of 
years  that  preceded  the  Christian  era.  He  had  all  the 
lights  of  prolonged  experience,  profound  philosophy,  high 
and  varied  civilization.  And  with  what  results  ?  As  we 
have  seen,  there  had  been  attained  nothing  that  can  now 
be  regarded  as  a  perfect  system  of  ethics.  There  w^as  no 
vice  which  had  not  its  apologists,  no  virtue  which  had  not 
its  detractors,  among  the  wisest  and  best  men  of  their 
day.  Nay,  some  essential  virtues  were  not  even  recog- 
nized by  name,  or  were  regarded  as  tokens  of  imbecility. 
Moreover,  if  Jesus  Christ  was  not  a  revealer  of  God's 
will,  his  system  must  be  ranked  among  the  most  grossly 
vicious  ethical  systems  of  antiquity  ;  for  Christianity,  if 
not  a  divine  revelation,  pretended  to  be  one,  was  foisted 
in  upon  the  world  by  a  gigantic  impostm-e,  and  therefore 
can  never  reckon  veracity  and  honesty  in  its  catalogue 
of  virtues.  Now  it  is  incredible  that  an  intelligent  Cre- 
ator should,  with  a  definite  design,  have  created  a  race 
of  free  moral  agents,  have  made  them  incapable  of  ascer- 
taining by  the  best  exercise  of  their  own  powers  what  he 
would  have  them  do  and  abstain  from,  and  yet  at  no 
time  and  in  no  way  have  given  them  direct  instruction  as 
to  his  will  and  law. 

If  we  further  assume  the  Divine  benignity  and  mercy, 
which  most  writers  on  natural  theology  regard  as  proved 
independently  of  revelation,  our  argument  becomes  still 
stronger.  Benignity  in  its  very  essence  craves  recogni- 
tion and  communion.  Love  does  not  conceal  itself  fi-om 
those  whom  it  blesses.  If  God  be  a  father,  his  paternal 
attributes  of  necessity  involve  self-revelation.     That  he 


42  CHRISTIANITY   THE   RELIGION   OF   NATURE. 

should  have  left  his  being  to  be  inferred  or  surmised ; 
that  he^slipuld  have  given  his  children  neither  instruc- 
tion, warning,  assurance,  nor  hope  ;  that  he  should  have 
wrapt  them  in  impenetrable  and  invincible  ignorance,  as 
to  the  greater  part  of  what  they  yearn  to  know  con- 
cernino;  him  ;  that  he  should  have  suffered  those  of  them 
who  would  gladly  do  his  will  to  be  bewildered  and 
doubtful  as  regards  that  will ;  that  he  should  have  aban- 
doned the  less  dutiful  to  waywardness  and  guilt,  without 
a  single  appeal  to  that  filial  feeling  which  often  lies  deep 
in  the  very  worst  heart,  and  becomes^  an  efficient  means 
of  repentance  and  reformation ;  this  is  so  atrociously 
unfatherly,  —  so  utterly  opposed  to  what  our  own  natural 
affection  renders  probable,  that  we  must  set  it  aside  as 
an  untenable  hypothesis.  The  fatherhood  of  God  and 
revelation,  then,  suppose  and  imply  each  other.  If  the 
former  be  a  doctrine,  the  latter  is  equally  a  postulate, 
of  natural  relio-ion.  If  God  has  withdrawn  himself  for- 
ever  from  direct  communication  with  men,  then,  what- 
ever else  may  be  his  relation  to  them,  —  Creator,  Sov- 
ereign, Judge,  —  he  is  not  their  Father. 

On  these  grounds  we  claim  that  revelation  rests  for 
its  intrinsic  probability  on  the  basis  of  natural  religion. 
The  denial  of  revelation  rejects  the  fatherhood  "of  God, 
casts  doubt  on  his  benignity,  negatives  the  inferences 
that  flow  from  intelligent  design,  and,  if  it  does  not  land 
us  in  atheism,  plunges  us  into  the  hardly  less  dreary  mist 
and  rayless  gloom  of  pantheism,  of  a  self-energizing  and 
self-organizing  nature,  an  animus  or  anima  mundi^  which 
can  be  the  object  of  neither  trust,  reverence,  nor  love. 

Here  we  are  met  by  the  objection,  —  On  these 
grounds  revelation  should  have  been  primeval  and  uni- 


REVELATION.  43 

versal.  I  answer,  in  the  first  place,  that  to  no  one  who 
admits  that  God  has  ever  made  a  revelation  of  himself 
will  a  primeval  revelation  appear  improbable,  to  few 
doubtful.  If  we  admit  the  authenticity  of  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures,  revelation  was  coeval  with  the  creation  of 
man.  The  religious  history  of  mankind  as  recorded  in 
the  Old  Testament  corresponds  with  what  on  a  priori 
grounds  might  seem  natural  and  probable  on  the  part  of 
a  father  God  ;  —  frequent  direct  interposition  in  the  in- 
fancy of  the  race  ;  rudimentary  instruction  and  progres- 
sive methods  of  discipline  during  its  adolescence  ;  a  full 
and  final  disclosure  of  truth,  law,  motive,  sanction,  rec- 
ompense, for  its  maturity.  And  while  I  believe  that 
Christianity  may  stand  firmly  on  its  own  basis  and  be 
authenticated  by  its  own  evidence,  I  contend  that,  as 
the  close  and  consummation  of  a  series  of  revelations,  it 
presents  the  more  manifest  tokens  of  its  accordance  with 
nature,  with  the  progressive  development  of  art,  science, 
and  civilization,  with  the  law  of  growth  and  the  sucession 
of  epochs,  which  we  trace  everywhere  in  creation,  read  in 
the  strata  of  the  earth's  surface,  and  discern  even  in  the 
genesis  of  the  solar  system  and  the  stellar  universe. 

Leaving  Scripture  aside,  we  have  nunierous  vestiges 
of  a  primeval  revelation.  A  theogony,  a  birth  of  the 
gods,  forms  a  part  of  the  mythology  of  all  nations, — 
fabulous  tradition  thus  runnino;  back  to  a  time  when  the 
popular  deities  had  not  begun  to  be,  and  generally  to  a 
time  when  there  was  a  single  divinity,  whose  offspring 
were  subsequently  born  to  a  rival  or  superior  godship. 
This  ti-adition  has  for  its  only  possible  historical  interpre- 
tation a  pristine  state  in  which  men  worshipped  one  God, 
(how  tauo;lit,  except  by  revelation  from  himself?)  and 
from  ^^hich  tliey  gradually  lapsed  into  hero,  nature,  or 


44  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

idol  worship.  Of  parallel  import  is  tlie  tradition  wliicli 
represents  a  Saturnian  age,  a  state  of  simplicity,  justice, 
and  innocence,  a  divine  rule  recognized  and  felt  among 
men,  as  the  earliest  phasis  of  society,  and  fraud,  violence, 
and  sensuality  as  intruding  forces  through  which  the 
earth  ceased  to  be  a  paradise.  This,  translated  into  his- 
tory, means  that  the  knowledge  of  the  right  and  the 
good  was  in  the  keeping  of  the  fathers  of  the  race,  (how 
but  by  revelation  ?)  and  was  lost  by  their  posterity. 

Now,  if  there  w\as  a  primeval  revelation,  the  fact  of  its 
loss  by  the  greater  part  of  mankind  is  in  accordance  with 
the  analogy  of  nature  ;  for  both  the  influence  of  charac- 
ter on  belief,  and  the  suffering  of  children  and  posterity 
from  the  faults,  crimes,  and  guilt  of  parents  and  ancestors, 
are  well  known  and  universally  recognized  laws.  Pure 
and  noble  beliefs  cannot  be  retained  with' a  corrupt  heart, 
or  transmitted  by  a  corrupt  ancestry.  In  all  time,  moral 
depravity  has  left  its  trail  on  the  intellect,  and  each  gen- 
eration has  inherited  the  errors  and  falsities  of  the  pre- 
ceding age.  Had  man's  religious  belief  and  growth 
obeyed  other  laws,  then  religion  would  have  been  an 
anomaly  in  human  nature  ;  and  if  revelation  had  been 
subject  to  other  laws,  then  revelation  would  have  been 
anomalous  and  unnatural.  Is  it  mamtained  that  a  su- 
premely good  Creator  could  not  but  have  replaced  the 
forgotten  revelation,  everywhere  and  in  each  generation, 
by  new  communications  from  himself?  In  order  to  this, 
he  must  have  abrogated  the  law  by  which  children  in- 
herit mentally  and  morally  from  their  parents,  —  a  law 
which  is  of  unspeakable  benefit  as  a  constant  motive  to 
healthful  activity  and  diligence,  and  an  effective  agent  in 
human  progress  and  improvement.  Indeed,  successive 
generations  could  not  be  sustained  as  moral  beings,  were 


EEVELATION.  45 

there  a  direct  interposition  to  replace  the  losses  of  oach 
generation,  and  to  restore  the  cliildren  to  privileges  for- 
feited by  the  parents.  In  a  Avorld  so  constituted,  there 
might  be  a  splendid  pageant  of  divine  administration,  but 
there  could  be  no  human  forethought,  energy  or  self- 
dependence. 

But  it  may  be  asked,  Why  should  Christianity,  the 
perfect  religion,  have  been  withheld  from  the  first  four 
thousand  years  of  human  history  ?  Be  it  true  or  false, 
does  not  its  arbitrary  promulgation  at  a  precise  period  of 
time  take  it  wholly  out  of  the  range  of  natural  develop- 
ment, so  that  it  must  stand  or  fall  on  its  claims  as  ab- 
solutely supernatural  ?  I  answer,  that  if  there  was  no 
reason  other  than  the  sovereign,  unconditioned  will  of 
the  Creator  for  the  epoch  of  its  promulgation,  —  if  it 
would  have  taken  its  place  as  fitly  at  an  earlier  or  a  latei 
period,  —  then  the  question  concerning  it  has  no  perti- 
nency in  our  discussion  of  natural  religion.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  if  Christ  came  in  the  fulness  of  time,  wdien 
the  world  was  prepared -for  him,  no  sooner,  no  later,  then 
was  his  advent  as  natural  as  are  the  phenomena  of  the  suc- 
cessive seasons,  and  there  is  as  much  philosophical  exact- 
ness as  poetical  beauty  in  those  sacred  words  commonly 
applied  to  him :  "  He  shall  come  down  like  rain  upon 
the  grass,  as  showers  that  water  the  earth."  Let  us  try 
the  question. 

The  leading  characteristic  of  Christianity  is,  that  its 
disclosures  reach  through  eternity,  —  that  its  sanctions 
are  drawn  from  a  retribution  beyond  the  grave.  It  is 
only  civilized  man  that  can  be  efficiently  influenced  by 
motives  of  this  class.  The  roving  savage  has  neither  the 
power  nor  the  habit  of  calculating  and  depending  on  the 
future.     He  knows  not  and  cares  not  what  will  be  on  the 


46  CHRISTIANITY  THE  EELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

morrow.  He  has  no  permanent  residence,  but  pitches  or 
strikes  his  tent  as  the  caprice  of  the  moment  may  dictate. 
He  lays  no  plans,  exercises  no  forethought,  ventures  no 
predictions,  and  lives  entirely  in  the  past  and  present. 
There  is  nothing  in  his  mode  of  subsistence,  which  should 
make  him  dwell  with  either  hope,  doubt,  or  fear  on  the 
future.  To  impress  on  such  minds  a  profound  and  endur- 
ing sense  of  a  distant  and  limitless  future,  is  in  the  nature 
of  things  impossible.  Modern  missionaries  have  found 
and  pronounced  it  so,  and  the  wisest  of  them  admit 
that  they  must  civilize  heathen  nations  in  order  to 
make  Christian  institutions  permanent,  and  that  they 
must  therefore  imitate  the  patience  of  Him  who, 
though  he  purposed  man's  redemption  from  the  foun- 
dation of  the  world,  waited  forty  centuries  or  more  for 
the  fulness  of  time  to  arrive. 

Now  tliis  wandering,  unsettled  life  was  the  natural 
condition  of  the  human  race  in  its  early  infancy.  It  was 
the  condition  of  the  major  part  of  the  race  for  many 
centuries.  It  was  the  condition  of  the  Jews  and  of  most 
of  the  Asiatics  in  the  time  of  Moses.  Hence  the  appro- 
priateness, and  therefore  the  naturalness,  of  the  Mosaic 
revelation.  A  religion  with  temporal  sanctions  was  pre- 
cisely what  the  Hebrews  and  the  age  of  the  Exodus 
needed.  Christianity  was  too  far-reaching,  too  spiritual, 
for  the  apprehension  and  faith  of  such  a  horde  of  nomads 
■  as  the  exiles  from  Egypt,  ■■ —  a  horde  much  resembling 
those  that  now  range  over  the  steppes  of  Tartary.  I  re- 
gard it  as  one  of  the  most  manifest  tokens  of  the  Divine 
origin  of  the  Mosaic  system,  that  it  was. silent  with  re- 
gard to  a  future  life,  and  promulgated  temporal  rewards 
and  punishments  alone.  This  was  as  far  as  the  fore- 
thought of  the  people  and  the  age  of  the  great  lawgiver 


REVELATION.  47 

could  go,  and  the  attempt  to  draw  motives  from  beyond 
the  confines  of  mortahty  would  have  been  useless  and 
abortive. 

But  the  Institutions  of  Moses  gradually  changed  his 
nation  from  a  pastoral  Into  an  agricultural  people,  from  a 
wandering  into  a  settled  community,  and  Introduced 
among  them  the  arts  and  refinements  of  civilization. 
Meanwhile  the  same  process  was  going  on  in  many  lands, 
and  was  culminating  In  Southern  Europe.  In  morals 
there  was  mdeed  no  progress,  nay,  rather  a  retrograde 
movement.  But  civilized  man  always  acquires  the  habit 
of  looking  forward  to  the  future  and  providing  for  it,  of 
looking  far  along  the  ages  and  laying  plans  for  the  ben- 
efit of  even  remote  posterity.  Civilized  life  cherishes 
forethought,  and  makes  men  live  more  in  the  future  than 
in  the  past  or  present.  This  forecasting  habit  had  its 
genesis  and  growth  in  the  leading  nations  betr^veen  Moses 
and  Christ.  With  it  had  sprung  up  everywhere  a  vague 
behef  in  man's  immortality ;  for,  as  soon  as  men  thought 
of  the  future,  the  instinctive  desire  of  continued  exist- 
ence took  an  objective  shape,  and,  though  without  ade- 
quate proof,  assumed  a  strong  hold  on  the  faith  of  large 
classes  of  enlightened  men,  both  Jews  and  Gentiles. 
Thus,  in  a  civilization,  corrupt  indeed,  yet  endowed  with 
forethought,  and  prepared  to  occupy  the  domain  in  the 
etenial  future  offered  to  its  belief  and  endeavor,  was  a 
matrix  provided  for  the  birth  and  growth  of  Christianity. 

At  this  time,  too,  not  only  was  civilization  in  the 
ascendant,  but  almost  the  whole  civlhzed  world  had 
become  united  in  the  Roman  Empire,  so  that  every 
pulsation  of  intellectual  and  spiritual  fife  was  felt  across 
continents,  and  almost  from  the  Atlantic  to  tlie  Pacific 
shore  of  the  Eastern  hemisphere.    The  union  of  so  many 


48  CHRISTIANITY   THE   RELIGION   OF   NATURE. 

and  diverse  nations  under  a  single  sovereignty  multi- 
plied avenues  and  modes  of  intercourse,  created  a  com- 
munity of  language  and  of  thought,  and  thus  presented 
a  more  favorable  condition  of  the  world  for  the  promul- 
gation of  a  religion  fitted"  to  be  universal,  than  had  ever 
existed  before,  or  has  recurred  until  the  present  century. 
Had  Christ  come  earlier,  he  would,  as  w^e  have  seen, 
have  found  men  too  unsettled  and  improvident  in  their 
worldly  habits  to  accept  a  rehgion  Avhose  treasures  were 
to  be  laid  up  in  heaven.  Had  he  come  later,  even  the 
area  of  civilization  would  have  been  contracted  in  the 
decline  of  the  Roman  Empire  ;  while  there  would  have 
been  wanting  the  general  currency  of  the  Greek  tongue, 
the  far-reaching  filaments  of  international  union,  and  the 
homogeneous  elements  which,  notwithstanding  the  vast 
diversity  of  races,  pervaded  the  Empire  in  its  palmy 
days,  and  favored  the  almost  simultaneous  difiusion  of 
the  new  religion  throughout  the  civilized  world.  But  if 
Christianity  was  thus  promulgated  at  the  very  time  when 
need,  preparation,  and  opportunity  concurred  to  crave, 
foster,  and  diffuse  it,  then  was  its  advent  postulated  by 
man's  and  God's  nature.  Its  Author's  birth  and  life, 
miracles  and  resurrection,  supernatural  though  they  be 
in  the  common  acceptation  of  that  word,  are  in  a  pro- 
founder  sense  pre-eminently  natural ;  and  had  that  age 
passed  away  unmarked  by  the  coming  of  Him  whose 
name  makes  it  illustrious  for  all  eternity,  what  would 
have  been  called  the  natural  order  and  sequence  of 
human  experiences  and  earthly  events  would  have  bep.n 
in  the  last  degree  unnatural. 

If  ths  argument  of  this  Lecture  is  not  fallacious,  I  have 
shown  you  that  the  antecedent  probability  of  revelation 


REVELATION.  49 

is  a  doctrine  of  natural  relic[;Ion.  Let  it  not  be  tliouo;"ht 
that  this  is  a  matter  of  mere  words,  and  that  tlie  ques- 
tion of  the  truth  or  falsity  of  Christianity  is  in  no  Avise 
affected  by  our  vindicating  or  disclaiming  for  it  a  coinci- 
dence with  natural  religion.  It  has  been  the  habit  of 
Christian  writers  and  preachers  to  represent  the  Chris- 
tian revelation  as  something  abnormal,  exceptional,  in 
antagonism  to  nature,  an  intrusion '  on  the  order  of 
creation,  and  therefore  not  antecedently  probable  or 
intrinsically  credible.  It  has  not  been  unusual  to  admit 
that  the  facts  connected  with  the  promulgation  of  Chris- 
tianity are  in  themselves  improbable,  and  then  to  set 
over  against  them  the  still .  greater  improbability  that  the 
array  and  mass  of  human  "testimony  in  behalf  of  those 
facts  should  be  false.  Now  this  weighing  of  opposite 
improbabilities  is  a  delicate  and  doubtful  process,  and  few 
minds  hold  so  even  a  balance  as  to  be  safely  intrusted 
with  it.  That  which  is  in  itself  improbable,  is  made 
scarcely  less  so  by  the  heaping  up  of  remote  testimony, 
however  strong.  With  the  temper  of  the  jDresent  age, 
prone  to  question  authority  and  to  rely  on  intrinsic  cri- 
teria of  truth,  an  argument  like  that  of  Paley's  Evi- 
dences is  full  as  apt  to  create  scepticism  as  to  confirm 
belief. 

No  one  can  attach  a  higher  value  than  I  do  to  the 
attestations  to  the  genuineness  and  authenticity  of  the 
Gospels  so  industriously  gathered  by  Paley,  Lardner, 
and  the  great  divines  of  their  school.  To  my  niind, 
no  series  of  events  in  ancient  history  stands  on  so 
Bolid  a  basis  of  human  testimony  as  that  which  sustains 
the  history  of  Jesus  Christ,  with  its  inseparable  accom- 
paniment of  marvel  and  miracle.  But  I  confess  that 
this  testimony  seems   to  me   immeasurably  stronger  in 

3  D 


60  CHRISTIANITY   THE  RELIGION  OF  NATURE 

behalf  of  what  is  intrinsically  probable  and  natural,  than 
it  would  in  behalf  of  facts  in  themselves  unnatural  and 
improbable.     Testimony  should  never  have  an  unneces- 
sary strain  laid  upon  it.     It  is  adequate  to  confirm  what 
it  is  inadequate  to  estabhsh.     Even  in  a  court  of  justice, 
the    skilled   advocate  deems   it   necessary  to  make   the 
theory  of  his  case  a  programme  for   his  evidence,  and 
is  very  chary  of  producing  witnesses  whose  testimony 
diverges  from  that  theory,  even  though  it  be  substan- 
tially on   his    side  ;  and   circumstantial  evidence  which 
estabhshes  an  assumed  theory  of  a  case  is  more  likely  to 
break  down  opposing  witnesses,  than  to  be  neutralized  by 
them.     Of  the  testimony  for  the  Gospel  history,  the  lim- 
itations of  my  present  course  will  not  allow  me  to  treat. 
But    my   argument    is   this:     The    testimony  —  varied 
and  strong  —  which  may  be  adduced  in  corroboration  of 
the  genuineness  and  truth  of  the  Gospels  is  urged  in 
behalf  of  what  is  intrinsically  natural  and  probable,  inde- 
pendently of  testimony.     The  Divine  nature  is  virtually 
pledged  to  reveal  itself.     Revelation  has  its  place  in  the 
circle  of  natural  needs,  of  necessary  truths.     The  Chris- 
tian revelation,  coming  as  it  did  when  the  world  was  best 
fitted  to  receive  it,  meets  an  inherent  want,  a  universal 
craving  of  mankind,  the  desire  of  all  nations,  the  proph- 
ecy of  all  antecedent  ages,  the  earnest  postulate  of  the 
religion  of  nature. 


LECTURE    III. 

MIRACLES. 

In  my  last  Lecture  I  showed  you  that  natural  rehgion 
renders  revelation  probable.  But  revelation  needs  to  be 
authenticated.  Unless  authenticated,  it  is  no  revelation. 
It  is  maintained,  however,  by  many,  that  divine  truth 
finds  its  sufficient  evidence  in  the  human  consciousness, 
and  that  therefore  any  authority  from  without  is  super- 
fluous, and  intrinsically  improbable.  The  following  is  a 
ftiir  statement  of  a  theory,  which  has  among  its  advocates 
not  a  few  ingenious  thinkers  and  excellent  men  of  our 
time,  and  which  seems  to  be  the  phasis  of  belief  enter- 
tained by  the  greater  part  of  the  latitudinarian  members 
of  the  English  Chui-ch,  whose  recent  writings  have  at- 
tracted so  much  attention  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic. 
The  Hebrew  prophets,  the  Clmstian  apostles,  and  Jesus 
Christ  himself,  were  neither  the  subjects  nor  the  workers 
of  miracles.  They  were  good  men,  Christ  pre-eminently 
good.  All  men,  in  proportion  to  their  moral  capacity, 
are  the  recipients  of  teaching  and  inspiration  from  God, 
and  these  men,  from  the  intensity  of  their  religious 
genius,  had  a  larger  capacity  of  divine  illumination  than 
belongs  even  to  the  better  portion  of  mankind  in  gen- 
eral. But  they  had  no  other  authority  than  that  which 
accrued  to  them  from  then'  superior  capacity  and  excel- 
lence. They  stood  in  no  official  relation  to  mankind, 
other  than  that  which  we  should  bear  if  we  had  similar 


52  CHRISTIANITY   THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

capacity  and  excellence.  Their  teachings  address  them- 
selves to  our  receptivity,  and  are  truth  to  us  only  so  far 
as  they  accord  with  whatever  of  divine  illumination  there 
is  in  us.  Our  inspiration  is  the  only  test  and  touchstone 
of  theirs.  What  we  do  not  feel  to  be  true,  we  have  no 
reason  for  believing  to  be  true.  What  is  not  in  our  own 
consciousness  is  none  the  more  sacred  to  us  because  it 
entered  into  their  belief.  They  were  not  incapable  of 
error  in  matters  of  religion,  and  we  are  right  in  rejectino- 
as  error  whatever  in  their  teachings  does  not  harmonize 
with  our  highest  conceptions  of  God,  of  duty,  and  of  a 
future  life. 

To  this  theory  I  would  reply,  first,  that  it  covers  only 
a  portion  of  the  ground  occupied  by  the  Scriptm^es  and 
religious  teachings.  There  are,  I  grant,  some  subjects 
of  prime  importance,  as  to  which  we  may  verify  the  truth 
by  our  own  consciousness,  and  as  to  which  the  conscious- 
ness of  a  sincerely  good  man  may  be  regarded  as  infalli- 
ble. This  is  the  case  with  cardinal  virtues  and  funda- 
mental duties.  The  consciousness  of  every  man  who  has 
obeyed  the  precepts  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  attests 
their  coincidence  with  the  Eternal  Right.  I  trust  that 
there  are  many  of  you  whose  belief  in  the  Beatitudes 
with  which  that  Sermon  commences  could  not  be  made 
stro  ger,  were  they  at  this  moment  miraculously  repub- 
lished in  your  hearing.  The  interior  consciousness,  closely 
interrogated,  also  confirms  the  reality  of  a  righteous  ret- 
ribution, which  works  in  the  soul's  experience  even  when 
it  leaves  no  outward  sign.  But  there  are  other  depart- 
ments of  religious  truth,  as  to  which  even  moral  perfec- 
tion might  fail  to  give  certain  knowledge,  and  in  which 
consciousness  offers  no  adequate  test.  Thus,  as  I  showed 
you  in  a  former  Lecture,  a  good  man's  mere  desire  for 


MIEACLES.  53 

continued  existence,  and  his  opinion  in  accordance  with 
that  desire,  are  no  proof  of  immortahty.  There  may,  for 
aught  we  know,  be  physiological  reasons  why  life  should 
cease  when  the  body  dies  ;  and  if  so,  no  height  of  moral 
excellence  or  of  spiritual  illumination  could  authenticate 
the  heart-testimony  to  immortality  which  would  still  be 
borne  by  a  soul  fitted  for  the  life  eternal,  and  debarred 
from  it  only  by  physical  hinderances  too  occult  for  its 
appreciation.  In  this  matter  we  crave  not  the  conscious- 
ness of  one  who  feels,  but  assurance  from  one  who 
knows  ;  and  who  can  know  unless  he  has  learned  directly 
from  God  ?  To  specify  another  subject  of  prime  practical 
importance,  one  of  the  most  interesting  of  all  questions 
is,  whether  God  exercises  a  paternal  .providence  over  us 
individually,  or  whether  we  live  under  an  administration 
generally  beneficent,  but  under  which  the  individual 
may  be  a  suflPcrer  and  a  victim  without  offset  or  coun- 
tervailing benefit.  Now  the  best  man  that  ever  lived 
cannot  by  virtue  of  his  goodness  enter  into  the  Divine 
consciousness.  He  may  be  fully  persuaded  of  the  benig- 
nity of  tlie  Creator,  —  he  may  earnestly  crave  all  that  the 
Christian  believes  about  the  providence  of  God ;  yet  so 
conceivable  is  it  as  to  have  been  the  belief  of  many 
excellent  men,  that  this  minute  individual  providence 
is  in  the  nature  of  things  impossible.  None  can  resolve 
this  question  except  on  the  direct  authority  of  the  Divine 
mind. 

Again,  it  is  admitted  that  the  consciousness  of  spiritual 
truth  belongs  only  to  the  highly  developed  moral  nature. 
One  knows  by'  consciousness  only  what  he  has  experi- 
enced. The  safety  and  blessedness  of  virtue  have  en- 
tered into  the  consciousness  of  none  except  the  virtuous. 
But  bad  men  are  as  much  in  need  of  relioious  truth  as 


54  CHRISTIANITY   THE   RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

good  men,  and  to  them  it  must  come  from  without, 
before  they  can  have  its  evidence  within.  They  must 
be  led  to  virtuous  acts  before  they  can  have  the  self-con- 
sciousness of  virtuous  men.  And  in  order  to  secure  their 
belief,  and  so  to  induce  them  to  make  their  first  experi- 
ments of  moral  truths  which  they  will  subsequently  know 
by  experience,  there  must  be  teaching  that  shall  rest  on 
recognized  and  infallible  authority.   • 

There  is,  then,  need  not  merely  of  Divine  illumination, 
but  of  authoritative  revelation,  first,  to  give  good  men  the 
certainty  of  those  things  beyond  the  scope  of  consciousness 
which  it  concerns' them  to  know,  and,  secondly,  to  assure 
bad  men  of  those  moral  and  spiritual  facts  and  truths,  the 
knowledge  of  which  may  lead  to  their  repentance  and 
reformation. 

,  There  are  two  methods  in  which  this  knowledge 
might  be  communicated.  It  might,  in  the  first  place,  be 
given  to  every  human  being  in  some  way  in  which  he 
could  recognize  it  as  Divine  revelation.  This,  however, 
would  overbear  moral  agency,  annul  the  power  of  choice, 
and  make  virtue  and  piety  involuntary  and  inevitable, 
and  therefore  characteristics  not  of  self-determining  in- 
dividual wills,  but  of  a  race  of  automatons,  passively 
subjected  to  the  Supreme  Will. 

The  second  altei^native  method  is  to  commit  Divine 
revelation  to  individuals  chosen  for  that  purpose,  and  to 
render  it  liable  to  those  conditions  of  investigation,  proof, 
and  acceptance  or  rejection,  which  are  attached  to  all 
other  subjects  on  which  man  is  left  to  exercise  his  func- 
tions as  a  free  moral  agent.  This  desideratum  is  met  by 
a  revelation  resting  on  evidence  adequate,  yet  not  irre- 
sistible, —  within  the  reach  of  inquirers,  yet  not  forced 
upon  them  against  their  will,  —  open  to  scepticism,  yet 


MIRACLES.  55 

with  ample  resources  for  converting  honest  scepticism  into 
confident  beHef.     But  in  what  must  this  evidence  con- 
sist ?     I  answer  in  one  word,  In  miracle,  that  is,  in  phe- 
nomena aside  from  the  usual  course  of  nature,  which  are 
equivalent  to  the  direct  voice  or  the  manifest  seal  of  God. 
We  can  conceive  of  no  other  way  in  which  a  revelation 
can   be    promulgated    as    such.      God    without   miracle 
might  impart  to  the  mind  of  an  individual  man  so  strong 
a  persuasion  of  certain  truths  that  he  should  absolutely 
know  them  to  be  true.     But  he  has  in  that  case  no  tan- 
gible, communicable  evidence  of  these  truths.     To  any 
other  mind  they  are  simply  his  opinions,  not  God's  rev- 
elation.    If  he  proclaims  them,  it  must  be  on  his  own 
authority,  backed  by  such  reasoning  as  he  can  command, 
and  if  they  lie  beyond  the  sphere  of  consciousness,  by  no 
conclusive  reasoning.     But  let  him  perform  such  an  act 
as  none  can  perform  by  the  exercise  of  his  own  powers  ; 
let  him  give  sight  to  a  man  born  blind,  or  hearing  to  one 
born  deaf ;  let  him  lift  a  dead  man  alive  from  the  bier,  or 
call  forth  from  the  sepulchre  one  who  has  lain  there  four 
days,  —  then,  if  he  talks  of  duty,  God,  and  heaven,  if  he 
proclaims  truths  beyond  the  realm  of  consciousness,  his 
hearers  know  that  they,  are   virtually  listening  to  the 
voice  of  God,  that  the  Divine  testimony  attests  his  utter- 
ance, and  that  his  words  are   absolutely  and  infallibly 
true. 

It  is  said,  indeed,  and  rightly,  that  a  physical  fact  can- 
not prove  a  spiritual  truth.  But  it  may  attest  a  truth- 
teller.  It  may  invest  him  with  the  right  to  be  believed. 
The  scepticism  that  actually  exists  in  the  community 
concerns  the  occurrence  or  the  possibility  of  miracles, 
not  their  trustworthiness  as  testimony.  There  may  be 
among  you,  perhaps,  some  who  do  not  believe  in  mira- 


56  CHRISTIANITY   THE   RELIGION   OF   NATURE. 

cles  ;  but  were  an  undoubted  miracle  to  be  performed 
this  moment  in  jonr  sight,  and  were  he  who  performed 
it  to  connect  with  it  such  statements  with  regard  to 
unseen,  spiritual,  future  things  as  you  had  never  heard 
before,  there  is  not  one  of  you  who  would  not  believe  all 
that  he  said. 

The  proof  of  the  mu^acles  recorded  in  the  Bible,  it 
forms  no  part  of  my  plan  to  present.  But  in  the  residue 
of  this  Lecture  I  shall  attempt  to  show  you  that  miracles 
belong  to  the  religion  of  nature. 

Miracles  are,  in  the  first  place,  a  demand  of  human 
nature,  and  an  almost  universal  belief  of  mankind.  They 
enter  into  the  traditions  of  every  people,  and  either  lie 
at  the  basis,  or  are  incorporated  with  the  legends,  of 
every  religion.  Even  religious  unbehef  does  not  rid  the 
soul  of  the  appetency  for  them.  We  have  the  record 
of  not  a  few  cases  in  which  avowed  infidels,  even  athe- 
ists, have  been  tortured  by  superstitious  fears,  and  vic- 
timized by  feeble  credulity  as  to  apparitions  and  events 
aside  from  the  common  course  of  human  experience. 
Every  brief  reign  of  infidelity  has  been  succeeded  by  a 
recoil  toward  easy  belief  in  marvels  and  wonders  from 
the  unseen  world.  At  the  present  moment,  the  procliv- 
ity toward  the  dominant  form  of  necromancy  is  immeas- 
urably stronger  among  those  who  reject  than  among 
those  who  receive  the  Christian  miracles.  None  are  so 
ready  to  give  heed  to  the  drivellings  and  insane  vaticina- 
tions of  hyper-electrified  women  personating  the  voices 
and  desecrating  the  memories  of  the  honored  dead,  as 
those  who  deny  the  resurrection  of  Christ.  Tlie  in- 
stances of  the  utter  non-receptivity  of  miracles,  even  in 
this  sceptical  age,  are  less  numerous  than  those  of  con- 


MIRACLES.  Ot 

genital  malformation  or  of  idiocy;  Svliile  during  many 
periods  of  the  world's  history  they  have  been  too  sparse 
to  leave  either  record  or  memorial.  So  far  is  the  uni- 
formity of  nature  from  being  a  fundamental  law  of  luiman 
belief,  that  appetency  for  the  abnormal  might  with  much 
greater  fitness  be  deemed  an  element  of  man's  nature, 
the  sporadic  exceptions  to  it  seeming  little  else  than 
defective  specimens  of  their  race.  The  multitude  of 
confessedly  false  reports  of  miracles  only  strengthens 
my  statement;  for,  if  miracles  not  only  have  never  taken 
place,  but  are  opposed  to  the  laws  of  belief,  how  is  it  that 
the  entire  history  of  behef  is  full  of  tliem  ?  Counterfeits 
imply  a  genuhie  paradigm.  The  eleven  false  ancilia  in 
the  temple  of  Mars  were  forged  after  the  pattern  of  the 
one  that  fell  from  heaven.  Fiction'  takes  its  rise  only 
from  verisimilitude,  and  obtains  currency  only  by  its 
analogy  to  fact. 

The  true  interpretation  of  the  appetency  for  the  mar- 
vellous is  in  this  wise.  Because  man  is  spirit  as  well  as 
body,  and  gravitates  toward  the  unseen  future  while  he 
lives  in  the  present,  there  is  a  demand  in  his  nature  that 
the  barrier  between  the  material  and  the  spiritual  be  at 
some  point  ruptured,  the  veil  between  the  seen  and  the 
unseen  somewhere  parted,  the  realm  of  the  dead  revealed 
to  the  knowledge  of  the  living.  In  no  age,  under  no 
culture,  has  this  demand  been  silent  or  inactive.  It  has 
interrogated  the  stars,  peered  into  the  entrails  of  slaugh- 
tered victims,  explored  the  seat  of  life  in  human  sacrifices, 
enacted  the  foul  and  horrible  orgies  of  magic  and  witch- 
craft. And  Christianity  is  natural  religion,  because  it 
meets  this  demand,  and  satisfies  this  need,  —  because  it 
has  its  authentic  voices  from  the  parted  heavens,  its 
manifest  for th-r cachings  of  the  everlasting  arms,  its  souls 
3* 


68  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

rendered  back  from  the  death-slumber,  its  immortality- 
made  manifest  in  the  risen  Jesus,  —  because  it  answers 
the  questions  which  man  cannot  help  asking,  and  feeds 
the  desires  wdiich  are  as  inseparably  a  part  of  his  being 
as  are  love  and  memory  and  hope. 

I  would  next  remind  you  that  miracles,  so  far  from 
being  inconsistent  with  the  known  system  of  nature, 
have  confessedly  constituted  a  large  part  of  the  history 
of  the  physical  universe.  By  a  miracle  we  denote  an 
event  which  occurs  without  any  proximate  cause  adapted 
to  produce  it.  What,  then,  was  each  separate'  creative 
act  of  the  Almighty,  if  not  a  miracle  ?  The  races  of 
organized  beings  now  succeed  one  another  by  established 
laws  ;  but  the  first  man,  the  first  elephant,  the  first  bird, 
the  first  tree,  was  a -miracle.  There  was  no  antecedent 
physical  cause  for  the  shape,  or  size,  or  organization  of 
the  first-born  of  each  family.  The  details  might  have 
been  indefinitely  varied  without  any  failure  of  adaptation 
to  surrounding  objects.  Man  might  have  had  as  many 
eyes  as  the  spider,  the  dove  might  have  had  four  wings, 
the  ox  a  trunk  like  the  elephant's,  so  far  as  any  antece- 
dent reason  was  concerned.  If  we  suppose  an  intelligent 
witness  of  the  creation,  each  new  substance,  each  organ- 
ized form,  each  living  being,  must  have  been  as  literally  in 
his  eyes  a  miracle,  an  effect  without  a  material  cause,  a 
direct  act  of  the  Omnipotent  Will  on  lifeless  matter,  as  to 
us  would  be  the  sudden  reappearance  alive  of  a  man 
whom  we  knew  to  have  been  dead.  And  on  the  very 
grounds  on  which  miracles  are  objected  to  as  inconsistent 
with  the  laws  of  nature,  and  unworthy  of  the  immutable 
Creator,  an  intelligent  being  who  had  existed  before  the 
earth  was  inhabited  might  in  subsequent  ages  have 
refused  to  believe  that  it  had  any  inhabitants,  and  have 


MIRACLES.  59 

pronounced  his  brotlier-si^irits  who  professed  to  have 
seen  them  impostors  or  dupes  ;  for  not  an  act  of  forming 
power  or  organizing  wisdom  can  have  obeyed  any  law 
but  the  attributes  of  Him  to  whom  all  things  wise  and 
good  are  possible.  The  objector  to  miracles  can  have  no 
more  appropriate  or  logical  answer  than  those  words  in 
the  poem  of  Job,  which  the  Almighty  utters  out  of  the 
whirlwind  :  "  Where  wast  thou  when  I  laid  the  foun- 
dations of  the  earth  ?  Hast  thou  entered  into  the 
springs  of  the  sea  ?  Or  hast  thou  walked  in  the  search 
of  the  depth  ?  Have  the  gates  of  death  been  opened 
unto  thee  ?  Or  hast  thou  seen  the  doors  of  the  shadow 
of  death  ?  Knowest  thou  because  thou  wast  then  born  ? 
Or  because  the  number  of  thy  days  is  great  ?  "  When 
I  contemplate  the  diversity  of  the  creation,  the  infin- 
ity of  resources  which  it  exhibits,  the  miracles  beyond 
thought  which  it  offers  to  our  view,  dull,  leaden  uni- 
formity from  the  creation  onward  seems  the  least  prob- 
able theory.  I  expect  to  see  the  leading  epochs  in  the 
spiritual,  as  they  were  in  the  material  universe,  marked 
by  miracle  ;  new  life  for  men's  souls  attended  and  at- 
tested by  visible  signs  of  Omnipotence  ;  the  promulga- 
tion of  the  Divine  truth  and  love  accompanied  by  the 
shaking  of  the  powers  of  nature,  and  the  upheaving  of 
restored  animation  from  the  realms  of  the  dead. 

But  it  may  be  alleged  tliat,  whatever  may  have  taken 
place  in  the  beginning,  man  has  had  experience  only  of  a 
uniform  system  and  inflexible  laws.  This,  however,  you 
will  perceive,  is  denied  by  the  only  authority  on  which 
it  can  be  asserted,  —  human  testimony.  We  can  know 
that  miracles  have  not  occurred  only  by  the  consenting 
negative  testimony  of  all  mankind,  and  we  have  seen 
that  the  vast  preponderance  of  man's  testimony  is  in  the 


60  CHRISTIANITY   THE   RELIGION   OF   NATURE. 

affirmative,  —  that  the  belief  in  miracles  is  almost  uni- 
versal.^ 

Let  us,  however,  examine  this  question  of  uniformity 
by  the  light  of  science.  That  in  the  highest  sense  of  the 
word  the  system  is  uniform,  I  cannot  doubt ;  for  it  can- 
not be  otherwise  than  consistent  in  all  its  parts  with 
the  attributes  of  its  sole  Creator  and  Supreme  Legislator. 
There  can  be  no  contrasts  that  are  not  comprehended  in 
a  broader  generalization,  no  discords  that  are  not  em- 
braced in  a  more  subtile  harmony,  no  divergent  ten- 
dencies which  do  not  beyond  human  vision  converge  in 
ends  worthy  of  the  wisdom,  declarative  of  the  love,  of 
Him  from  whom  behind  human  vision  they  issued  on 
their  several  tracks  and  missions.  But  in  the  common 
acceptation  of  the  term,  the  system  of  the  universe  is  not 
uniform.  Astronomy  reveals  no  unvarying  type  in  the 
structure,  environments,  and  movements  of  the  heavenly 
bodies.  There  are  in  the  remotest  outlying  provinces  of 
telescopic  vision  nebulae  unresolved,  and,  as  is  believed 
by  many  astronomers,  luiresolvable.  It  matters  not 
whether  these  nebulae  are  in  the  process  of  consolida- 
tion, but  at  earlier  stages  of  their  physical  history  than 
the  stars  which  present  a  sharply  defined  disk,  or  whether 
they  are  permanent  conglomerations  of  nebulous  matter. 
In  either  case,  the  field  of  telescopic  vision  presents  as 
concurrently  under  the  Divine  jurisdiction  two  different 
classes  of  celestial  bodies,  which  must  of  necessity  mani- 
fest unlike  phenomena,  be  controlled  by  different  orders 
of  physical  laws,  and  bear  widely  different  relations  to 

1  Hume's  celebrated  argument  against  miracles  is  a  mere  petiiio  jjnncipii. 
He  assumes,  in  defiance  of  multitudinous  testimony  to  the  contrary,  that 
miracles  are  opposed  to  the  experience  of  mankind,  and  maintains  that  there- 
fore no  testimony  can  substantiate  them,  —  forgetting  that  the  experience  of 
mankind  can  be  ascertained  only  by  testimony. 


MIRACLES.  61 

their  secondaries,  if  they  are  centres  of  systems,  and  to 
animated  nature  if  they  are,  either  or  both,  inhabited. 
The  binary  stars,  revolving  about  their  common  centre 
of  gravity,  hold  an  anomalous  place  in  the  heavens  ;  for 
the  mutual  relations  of  each  pair  of  these  celestial  gemini, 
and  their  relations  to  other  heavenly  bodies,  can  be 
neither  explained  by  analogies  drawn  from  our  solar 
system,  nor  embraced  in  our  theories  of  the  single  stars. 
In  our  own  system,  too,  there  are  wide  diversities.  The 
diurnal  rotation  of  the  planets  —  the  most  important  of 
all  their  movements,  if  we  consider  them  as  inhabited 
worlds  —  divides  them  into  two  dasses,  the  smaller  and 
nearer  planets  having  days  more  than  twice  as  long  as 
those  of  Jupiter  and  Saturn.  The  unequal  distribution 
of  satellites  in  the  system,  the  solitary  revolution  of  Mars, 
the  gorgeous  retinue  of  Jupiter,  the  marvellous  environ- 
ment of  Saturn,  are  differences  which  science  blends  in 
no  theory,  legitimizes  by  no  laws,  harmonizes  by  no 
sweeping  generalization,  but  can  only  point  to  the  inscru- 
table will  of  Him  who  has  made  one  star  to  differ  from 
another  star  in  glory.  The  comets,  too,  remain  anoma- 
lies in  the  system.  What  uses  they  subserve,  what 
dreary  depths  or  glorious  heights  of  space  they  penetrate 
in  their  aphelion,  we  know  not,  and  on  earth  can  never 
know.  Hardly  to  be  recognized  by  marks  of  identity 
when  they  are  reputed  to  return,  or,  if  cognizable,  never 
keeping  tryst  with  the  astronomer,  but  before  or  behind 
his  appointed  time,  it  may  be  doubted  whether  they  are 
better  understood  now  than  when  their  advent  spread 
terror  among  the  nations  ;  and  in  them  are  the  hidings 
of  His  power,  and  a  stern  rebuke  on  the  arrogance  which 
would  limit  the  outgoings  of  Omnipotence,  drop  the  Ime 
and  plummet  of  ignorance  into  the  fathomless  abyss  of 


62  CHRISTIANITY   THE  RELIGION  OF  NATURE. 

the  Divine  counsels,  and  circumscribe  the  immeasurable 
creation  within  laws  and  limits  of  its  own  devising. 
Equally  irreducible  to  any  comprehensive  hypothesis  are 
the  asteroids,  —  that  cluster  of  planets  so  strangely  mul- 
tiplying under  the  telescope  where  our  antecedent  theo- 
ries might  lead  us  to  look  but  for  one.  Has  there  been  a 
miracle  in  that  region  of  the  heavens  ?  We  have  indeed 
set  aside  the  old  notion  of  disruption  from  some  im- 
pinging contact  or  explosive  force,  and  the  kindred  sup- 
position that  moral  causes  have  left  the  record  of  an 
outraged  Deity's  righteous  displeasure  in  a  shattered 
world.  But  why  this*  pristine  parting  of  the  nebulous 
ring,  which,  for  aught  that  we  can  see  to  the  contrary, 
might  have  globed  itself  in  undivided  unity  ?  Suffice  it 
to  say,  that  here  is  a  diversity  with  no  cause  that  we  can 
trace,  a  lacuna  in  our  system  of  the  universe,  a  caveat 
against  the  presumption  that  would  crowd  within  its  own 
narrow  hypotheses  all  the  possibilities  of  nature.  Whence 
come  the  meteoric  stones  ?  Of  origin  foreign  to  our 
planet,  or  at  least  proceeding  fi^om  sources  that  elude 
our  search,  then'  motions  reducible  to  no  known  law,  they 
indicate  that  we  are  surrounded  by  forces  which  we  can- 
not measure  or  calculate,  that  there  are  ordinances  of  the 
heavens  which  w^e  have  not  yet  learned  to  register ;  and 
they  may  well  make  us  cautious  in  applying  the  limita- 
tions of  our  theories  to  events,  if  more  significant  to  us, 
not  one  whit  more  abnormal,  which  may  have  occurred 
in  connection  with  the  religious  history  of  oui'  own 
planet. 

I  doubt  not  that  there  are  intelhgences  that  can  trace 
and  comprehend  the  perfect  harmony  of  the  universe, 
and  can  see  the  vast  circumference  of  creation  girdled  by 
the  inscription,  "  God  is  one."    The  point  which  I  would 


MIRACLES.  63 

urge  is  this,  —  In  the  system  of  the  material  universe 
there  is  seeming  diversity,  and  even  contrariety  of  plan, 
where  we  believe  that  there  is  only  harmony  and  unity. 
We,  therefore,  have  no  reason  to  deny  that  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  human  affairs  there  may  have  been  like 
seeming  diversity  and  contrariety,  as  there  must  have 
been,  if  at  certain  periods  and  at  certain  places  the  action 
of  proximate  causes  has  been  suspended,  and  Omnipo- 
tence has  wrought  on  material  forms  with  no  intervening 
agency.  As  to  anomalies  in  outward  nature,  we  accept 
the  testimony,  not  of  our  own  senses,  but  of  competent 
and  disinterested  scientific  observers  ;  —  in  the  case  of 
miracles  we  have  the  testimony  of  competent  and  more 
than  disinterested  eye  and  ear  witnesses,  —  more  than 
disinterested  T  say;  for  loss,  shame,  stripes,  and  death 
were  the  price  expected  and  paid  for  their  testimony. 

But  there  still  lies  in  many  minds  so  profound  a  sense 
of  the  inviolableness  of  general  laws,  as  to  make  them 
sceptical  as.  to  miracles,  though  sustained  by  the  strongest 
evidence.  We  shall  be  prepared  to  discuss  the.  inviola- 
bleness of  general  laws  when  we  have  proved  their 
existence.  Their  existence  is  a  mere  assumption,  proba- 
ble, plausible,  but  resting  on  no  positive  ground  of 
knowledge  or  necessary  inference.  That  certain  conse- 
quents which  we  call  effects  are  wont  to  follow  certain 
antecedents  which  we  call  causes,  we  indeed  know,  and 
to  the  extent  of  these  regular  sequences  we  can  expect, 
plan,  and  act  with  confidence.  But  how  numerous  are 
the  events  which  we  cannot  calculate,  —  as  to  which  the 
philosopher  of  the  nineteenth  century  after  Christ  has  as 
little  foresight  as  the  barbarian  of  the  nineteenth  century 
before  Christ !  How  know  we  that  what  we  call  gen- 
eral laws  extend  any  further  than  is  needed  to  assist  our 


64  CHRISTIANITY  THE   RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

calculations  ?  How  know  we  that  beyond  this  very 
limited  range  a  discretionary  Providence  may  not  be 
the  only  law  ?  Mark,  —  I  by  no  means  assert  this,  — 
I  am  not  inclined  to  believe  it ;  but  he  who  objects  to 
well-authenticated,  but  anomalous  facts,  on  the  gi'ound 
of  general  laws,  is  bound  to  demonstrate  those  laws 
before  he  uses  them  in  argument. 

This  demonstration  is  rendered  the  more  difficult -by 
the  results,  or  rather  the  non-results,  of  inquiry  into 
efficient  physical  causes.  Six  thousand  years  of  research 
have  failed  to  reveal  in  matter  inherent  powers  that 
produce  motion,  organization,  growth,  transformation. 
We  talk,  indeed,  of  gravitation,  caloric,  electricity,  mag- 
netism, as  if  we  knew  what  they  are  ;  yet  these  are  but 
euphemisms  for  our  ignorance,  —  fence- words  set  up  at 
the  outermost  limit  of  our  knowledge.  In  the  impossi- 
bility of  detecting,  and  even  of  imagining,  an  inherent 
force  in  brute  matter,  we  are  constrained  to  refer  all 
power  to  mind,  intelligence,  volition  ;  and  the  latest 
phasis  of  physical  science,  which  represents  force  as  one, 
and  its  forms  as  mutually  convertible,  is  but  the  philo- 
sophic expression  of  the  anthem  of  all  pure  and  clear- 
seeing  spirits  in  heaven  and  on  earth,  "  Of  Him,  and 
through  Him,  and  to  Him  are  all  things." 

There  is  nothing,  then,  in  the  laws  or  forces  of. nature, 
which  forbids  our  belief  in  the  occurrence  of  events  that 
seem  abnormal,  if  there  have  been  epochs  in  the  Divine 
administration  when  such  events  could  best  subserve  the 
purposes  of  the  Creator.  Nature  is  synonymous  with 
God.  Whatever  is  consistent  with  his  attributes  is 
natural.  But  it  is  not  natural  that  we  should  know  all 
that  it  was  ever  possible  for  God  to  do,  —  that  his  admin- 
istration should  be  in  all  its  parts  level  with  our  approx- 


MIRACLES.  65 

imate  philosophy  of  matter  and  of  mind.  Yet  the  entire 
argument  of  Baden  Powell,  the  most  able  and  reverent 
among  the  recent  expositors  of  naturaHsm,  is  utterly 
baseless,  if  it  be  once  admitted  that  the  scope  of  Powell's 
mind  is  less  than  coextensive  with  the  Supreme  Intelli- 
gence. Were  we  to  take  even  the  popular  view  of  mira- 
cles, as  the  mere  arbitrary  setting  aside  of  the  natural 
course  of  events,  of  the  usual  order  of  cause  and  effect, 
I  know  not  why  He  who  ordained  and  governs  that 
course  and  order  may  not  have  suspended  it  at  His  pleas- 
ure and  for  His  own  benign  purposes.  His  decree  is  the 
immediate  cause  of  every  death  that  takes  place,  as  truly 
as  it  would  be  were  death  the  exception,  and  continued 
life  the.  rule  ;  and  if  the  death-bed,  the  bier,  and  the 
sepulchre  have  in  some  single  instances  rendered  back 
their  dead,  this  was  manifestly  as  much  within  the  scope 
of  His  power  as  it  is  to  decree  the  death  of  those  who  are 
daily  dying  all  the  world  over.  If  we  assume  that  at 
marked  historical  epochs  his  will  has,  on  grounds  of 
spiritual  utility,  departed  from  its  accustomed,  method  of 
procedure,  and  set  aside  the  wonted  procession  of  physi- 
cal antecedents  and  consequents,  all  that  we  need  to 
vindicate  the  perfect  naturalness  of  such  mu'aculous 
events  is  the  dignus  vindiee  7iodus,  the  occasion  worthy 
of  the  Divine  intervention ;  and  such  an  occasion  is 
surely  found  in  the  revelation  of  immortality,  the  au- 
thentication of  the  world's  Redeemer,  the  instauration 
of  a  new  era  of  spiritual  life,  when  all  nations  lay  under 
the  shadow  of  death. 

But  can  it  be  maintained  that  miracles  are  excep- 
tion^ to  natural  laws  ?  What  do  we  mean  by  natural 
laws  ?  Natural  is  either  an  absolute  or  a  relative  term. 
In   the   absolute   sense,   we   have   seen    that  whatever 

s 


6Q  CHRISTIANITY   THE  EELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

is  consistent  with  the  attributes  of  God  is  natural,  and 
that  in  this  sense  miracles  are  natural.  But  in  the 
phrase  natural  laivs^  the  term  is  employed  relatively,  and 
refers  to  the  generalizing  capacity  of  him  who  uses  it. 
Natural  laws  to  any  given  person  are  such  portions  and 
modes  of  the  Divine  administration  as  he  is  capable  of 
reducing  to  system.  To  the  savage,  the  comet  and  the 
eclipse  are  beyond  the  range  of  natural  phenomena.  To 
us,  the  authentic  facts  connected  with  mesmerism,  clair- 
voyance, and  pseudo-spiritualism  are  beyond  nature  ;  that 
is,  we  cannot  trace  the  connection  between  them  and 
then'  proximate  causes,  —  we  cannot  classify  them,  we 
cannot  comprehend  them  in  our  philosophy;  but  the 
next  generation  will  probably  do  all  this,  and  then  these 
phenomena  will  be  natural.  How  know  we  that  the 
works  of  power  and  love  alleged  to  have  been  wrought 
by  Christ  will  not,  in  an  age  of  higher  spiritual  philoso- 
phy, assume  their  place  in  the  order  of  nature,  as  pre- 
cisely what  should  have  been  anticipated  a  priori  in 
connection  with  a  theophany,  —  as  the  very  works  which 
could  not  but  have  proceeded  from  the  Divine  attributes 
incarnated  in  a  human  form,  —  as  bound  to  the  personality 
of  Jesus  by  the  same  constant  laws  of  cause  and  effect 
which  make  our  daily  deeds  and  words  proceed  naturally 
from  our  limbs,  muscles,  active  powers,  and  mental  hab- 
itudes ?  If  this  were  maintained,  by  parity  of  reason, 
those  who  by  virtue  of  special  measures  of  Divine  inspira- 
tion or  of  intimate  communion  and  sympathy  with  Jesus 
formed  a  peculiarly  endowed  class  among  men,  may  have 
had,  as  the  natural  and  necessary  results  of  these  pecu- 
Uai'  endowments,  powers  similar  in  kind,  though  inferior 
in  degree,  to  those  exercised  by  him  in  whom  Christian 
faith  recoo-nizes  the  manifest  God.     Miracles  then  may 


MIRACLES.  67 

be  natural,  not  only  absolutely,  as  in  accordance  with  the 
Divine  attributes,  but  also  relatively,  so  far  as  tlie  laws 
and  the  order  of  the  universe  are  concerned. 

Miracles  are  also  natm^al,  because  through  them,  and 
through  them  alone,  the  Creator  stands  in  certain  rela- 
tions to  his  creatures,  in  which  it  is  natural  that  he  should 
stand.  Prominent  among  human  experiences  are  temp- 
tations and  sorrows  ;  they  belong  to  the  essential  condi- 
tions of  our  existence  ;  they  are  evidently  a  part  of  the 
Creator's  design  ;  and  we  should  expect  also  to  find  as  a 
part  of  his  design  efficient  support  against  temptation, 
adequate  consolation  in  sorrow.  If  the  temptation  be 
natural,  the  support  is  equally  so.  If  the  sorrow  be 
natural,  the  consolation  is  equally  so.  Now  these  essen- 
tial offices  can  be  supplied  by  nothing  short  of  an  author- 
itative, that  is,  a  miraculously  attested  revelation. 

We  will  consider,  first,  the  case  of  temptation.  I  will 
suppose  a  young  man,  ingenuous  and  of  good  intentions, 
who  is  placed  in  a  position  of  great  moral  danger.  A 
friend  a  little  older  than  himself  gives  him  judicious 
advice  and  warning,  which  he  approves  with  all  his 
heart,  and  means  to  follow.  But  temptations  increase 
and  multiply,  his  own  feelings  become  interested  on  the 
wrong  side,  and  evil  counsellors,  who  have  the  same 
claim  to  be  heard  with  his  wise  and  virtuous  friend,  do 
what  they  can  to  turn  the  balance  in  accordance  with 
their  sympathies  and  habits.  And  the  balance  is  turned. 
The  good  advice  is  overborne  and  crowded  out,  because 
it  was  mere  advice,  and  not  endowed  with  any  authority. 
But  suppose  that  same  youth  under  the  positive  injunc- 
tions of  a  father,  in  whose  loving  discretion  he  has  a 
confidence  too  firm  to  be  shaken  or  undermined,  —  the 
father's  authority  may  save  him  where  the  friend's 
advice  would  be  of  no  avail. 


6S  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF   NATURE. 

Now,  if  Jesus  Christ  was  merely  a  profound  thinker, 
an  able  moral  teacher,  worthy  of  respect  and  deference 
for  his  wisdom  and  goodness,  yet  standing  in  no  official 
relation  to  us,  and  possessing  no  right  to  be  believed  and 
obeyed,  his  precepts  are  good  advice,  and  we  shall  fol- 
low them  till  our  passions  or  surrounding  examples  induce 
us  to  forsake  them  ;  but  they  will  have  no  hold  upon  us, 
no  clinching  grasp  upon  our  consciences,  no  rightful 
claim  to  our  sacred  heed  which  we  cannot  help  recog- 
nizing. But  his  miracles  place  him  in  a  new  and  entirely 
different  relation  to  us.  They  authenticate  his  absolute 
right  to  be  believed  and  obeyed.  They  make  his  pre- 
cepts the  word  of  God,  the  commands  and  prohibitions 
of  the  Omnipotent,  the  eternal  and  immutable  law  of  His 
household ;  and  thus  regarded,  they  have  a  tenacious 
hold,  a  binding  force,  which  temptation  cannot  relax,  or 
evil  counsel  neutralize.  Have  not  some  of  you  experi- 
enced the  power  of  a  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord"  in  these 
fearfal  crises  of  your  moral  being  ?  Has  not  the  entire 
marvellous  history  of  the  Saviour  at  such  seasons  given 
to  his  words  the  intense  emphasis  of  authority,  which 
has  sustained  you  in  the  right  when  earthly  motives 
were  all  arrayed  in  solid  phalanx  against  the  right? 
And  have  you  not  then  felt  that  it  was  natural  that  He 
who  suffered  you  to  encounter  the  full  force  of  temptation 
should  have  given  you,  in  this  authority  which  you.  could 
not  set  aside  or  reason  away,  an  adequate  support  and 
defence  ? 

In  sorrow  there  is  a  similar  need.  If  you  look  upon 
Jesus  merely  as  having  reached  higher  and  seen  farther 
than  any  other  thinker  of  his  age,  as  having  anticipated 
even  the  best  thoughts  of  our  own  day,  in  fine,  as  a 
masterly  religious  genius,  this  will  seem  enough  for  you 


MIRACLES.  69 

while  the  shadow  of  death  is  remote  from  your  person 
and  dwelling.  It  is  at  such  times  very  pleasant  to  think 
and  talk  about  the  intimations  of  immortality  in  nature 
and  in  the  soul,  and  to  feel  that  the  same  organs  of 
research  and  discovery  which  Jesus  had  are  yours.  But 
when  your  child  lies  dead  in  your  house  ;  when  a  friend 
dear  as  vour  own  being  is  wrestling  with  the  death-angel, 
and  on  the  point  of  yielding  up  his  breath  ;  when  mounds 
in  the  graveyard  are  all  that  remains  to  you  of  those 
from  whom  to  part  seemed  like  rending  soul  and  body 
asunder  ;  when  the  final  summons  sounds  in  your  own 
ears,  and  the  voice  comes  to  you,  "  Put  thy  house  in 
order,  for  thou  shalt  die,  and  not  live," — then  Jesus,  as 
a  philosopher  of  the  unseen,  as  a  suggestive  thinker,  as  a 
wonderfally  clear  and  far-seeing  mortal,  can  give  you  no 
support  or  consolation.  You  then  want  his  authority,  — 
his  right  to  be  believed.  You  need  his  works  of  omnip- 
otent love.  You  need  to  behold  the  bier  stopped  on  its 
way  to  the  grave,  the  sepulchre  yielding  up  its  prey,  the 
Crucified  walking  in  renewed  life  among  those  who  saw 
him  die.  Then,  and  not  till  then,  can  you  feel  the 
power  of  those  sublimest  words  ever  uttered  on  the 
earth,  which  shall  echo  from  grave  to  grave  till  the 
last  of  the  dying  shall  have  put  on  immortality,  —  "I 
am  the  resurrection,  and  the  life  :  he  that  believeth  in 
me,  though  he  were  dead,  yet  shall  he  live ;  and  whoso- 
ever liveth,  and  believeth  in  me,  shall  never  die." 

My  object  in  this  Lecture  has  been  to  vindicate  for  mir- 
acles their  place  in  natural  religion.  I  have  shown  you* 
that  there  is  in  the  human  soul  a  craving  and  an  appe- 
tency for  them,  as  seen  in  the  almost  universal  tendency 
to  believe  in  them  ;  that,  so  far  from  their  being  opposed 
to  natural  laws,  they  have  formed  part  of  the  undoubted 


70  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

history  of  nature,  are  in  accordance  with  those  Divine 
attributes  for  which  nature  is  but  another  name,  and  in  a 
wider  generahzation  may  be  comprehended  within  the 
circuit  of  natural  laws ;  and  that  they  are  adapted  to  the 
temptations  and  sorrows  which  are  among  the  essential 
experiences  of  human  nature.  So  far,  then,  are  they 
from  being  attended  by  any  antecedent  improbability, 
that  they  are  capable  of  being  estabhshed  by  competent 
human  testimony,  and  especially  by  so  strong  an  array 
of  unexceptionable  witnesses  as  attests  the  Christian 
miracles. 


LECTURE    IV. 

RECORDS   OF  REVELATION. 

In  my  last  two  Lectures  I  have  considered  the  grounds 
of  natural  religion  on  which  faith  in  revelation  and  in 
miracles  reposes.  A  revelation  must  needs  have  some 
definite  form  or  mode,  and  I  propose  to  inquire  this 
evening  in  what  form  we  should  antecedently  expect  a 
Divine  revelation  to  be  communicated  and  transmitted, 
and  how  far  the  Hebrew  and  Christian  Scriptures  meei 
the  demands  and  fulfil  the  conditions  of  natural  relimon. 

A  revelation,  in  order  to  be  definite,  must  be  verbal. 
Men  think  only  in  words.  Emotions  or  impressions  maj 
be  communicated  by  looks  and  gestures ;  but  truth  ancf 
fact  shape  themselves  in  words  alone,  and  are  transmitte(/ 
only  by  words. 

A  revelation,  in  order  to  be  made  availing  to  larg^ 
numbsrs  of  mankind,  must  be  promulgated  and  trans- 
mitted either  in  speech  or  in  writing.  The  recipient  of 
a  revelation  might  promulgate  it  by  speech  alone,  and 
might  leave  it  to  oral  tradition.  But  tradition,  we  well 
know,  is  diluted,  magnified,  distorted  in  various  ways, 
as  it  passes  from  mouth  to  mouth,  and  from  genera- 
tion to  generation.  In  the  lapse  of  time  its  authenticity 
always  lies  open  to  question.  Thus,  a  large  part  of  the 
traditional  history  of  our  own  country  is  already  myth- 
ical, and  there  are  varying  and  oj^posite  traditions  with 
regard  to  events  and  pei-sonages  even  of  the  last  century. 


72  CHRISTIANITY   THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

A  revelation  committed  to  so  unsafe  a  vehicle  would  lose 
its  hold  on  enlightened  faith,  and  would  have  for  its 
adherents  only  those  whose  ignorance  made  them  cred- 
ulous. 

Writing,  therefore,  is  the  form  in  which  we  should 
expect  a  Divuie  revelation  to  be  embodied  for  permanent 
use.  And  we  should  expect  authoritative  scriptures.  I 
use  the  word  authoritative^  not  inspired;  for  the  former 
word,  and  not  the  latter,  expresses  our  actual  need. 
The  mode  in  which  the  writers  of  an  alleged  revelation 
were  influenced  by  the  Omniscient  Mind  —  whether 
they  were  divinely  moved  to  write  specifically  what 
they  wrote,  or  whether,  being  divinely  enlightened,  they 
wrote  narratives,  letters,  poems,  as  occasion  prompted, 
and  these  writings  became  authoritative  because  they 
were  the  works  of  inspired  men  —  is  a  question  of  not 
the  least  practical  importance.  But  our  need  of  a  rev- 
elation implies  and  includes  the  need  of  scriptures  that 
cannot  mislead  us.  We  might  as  well  be  without  a  rev- 
elation, as  to  have  one  on  whose  record  we  can  place  no 
confident  reliance  ;  for  how  know  we  that  the  very  por- 
tions of  the  record  to  which  we  cling  with  the  fondest 
yearning  may  not  be  a  foreign  admixture,  and  no  part 
of  the  original  revelation  ?  If  the  golden  sands  of  truth 
are  blended  with  equally  glittering  sands  that  are  of  no 
value,  and  it  is  left  for  us  to  separate  the  precious  from 
the  worthless,  the  Divine  from  the  human,  we  need 
a  revelation  to  teach  us  what  j^ortion  of  the  record  coix- 
tains  a  revelation. 

I  know  it  may  be  said  with  truth  that  all  language  is 
ambiguous,  and  especially  that,  in  translating  infallible 
scriptures  into  other  than  the  original  tongues,  there 
must  needs  be  more  or  less  of  vagueness  and   error. 


RECORDS   OF  REVELATION.  73 

But  similar  considerations  apply  equally  to  writings  of 
all  kinds.  There  is  often  great  ambiguity  in  a  statute 
drawn  by  a  skilful  hand,  and  passed  after  careful  deliber- 
ation by  a  body  of  legislators.  But  would  there  not  be 
immeasurably  greater  ambiguity,  were  the  public  left  to 
unauthentic  rumor,  or  to  unauthorized  letter-writers,  for 
the  transactions  of  the  legislature  ?  A  part  of  a  care- 
fully prepared  document  is  intelligible  to  every  reader  ; 
and  as  for  the  portions  that  admit  of  being  differently 
understood  by  different  minds,  the  range  of  possible  in- 
terpretations is  limited  at  the  outset,  and  is  still  further 
diminished,  or  wholly  done  away,  by  the  comparison  and 
discussion  of  conflicting  views,  and  of  circumstances  and 
other  writings  adapted  to  throw  light  on  the  document  in 
question.  In  like  manner  the  range  of  mistranslation  is 
limited  at  the  very  first,  and  may  be  constantly  decreas- 
ing with  growing  facilities  for  understanding  the  writing 
translated  and  its  original  language.  Unauthentic  and 
mixed  records  of  revelation  would  give  rise  to  a  vast  and 
endless  amount  of  error  ;  for  every  man  would  regard 
that  portion  of  the  sacred  writings  as  true  which  squared 
with  his  notions,  flattered  his  prejudices,  served  his  in- 
terests, or  temporized  with  his  frailties  ;  and  while  some 
readers  of  clear  mind  and  pure  heart  might  detect  and 
eliminate  what  was  false  and  worthless,  others  would 
throw  away  the  truth  and  retain  the  alloy  of  error  alone, 
and  there  would  be  no  common  standard  by  which  those 
of  either  class  could  verify  their  conclusions.  But  in 
authentic  and  authoritative  scriptures  there  will  of  ne- 
cessity be  some  portions  of  fundamental  truth  so  plainly 
written  that  none  can  misunderstand  them  ;  the  range  of 
diverse  interpretations  will  be  limited  and  measurable  ; 
there  will  be  a  common  standard  of  judgment  in  the 
4 


74  CHEISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF  NATUEE. 

original  writings  ;  and  discussion  will  constantly  tei.d  to 
the  elimination  of  error  from  the  belief,  and  to  growing 
harmony  among  the  believers. 

This  statement  may  be  amply  verified  by  the  history 
of  opinions  in  Christendom.  Among  persons  calling 
themselves  Christians  there  are  three  classes.  First, 
there  are  those  who  profess  to  receive  the  Scriptui'es  as 
their  sole  and  infallible  rule  of  faith  and  practice.  Sec- 
ondly, there  are  those  who  receive  as  equally  infallible 
with  the  Scriptures  the  traditions  of  their  respective 
churches,  the  decisions  of  councils,  and  the  dicta  of  their 
ecclesiastical  superiors.  Thirdly,  there  are  those  who 
regard  the  Scriptures  as  good  books  for  the  most  part, 
but  as  simply  Jewish  literature,  not  infallible,  not  author- 
itative, and  containing  many  questionable  facts  and  erro- 
neous opinions.  Now,  with  all  the  diversities  of  doctrine 
in  the  first  class,  there  are  certain  frmdamental  truths  in 
which  they  all  agree,  such  as  the  personality  and  unity 
of  God,  the  divine  mission,  miraculous  birth,  sacrificial 
death,  resurrection,  ascension,  and  intercession  of  Christ, 
the  divine  influence  on  the  soul  of  man,  the  necessity 
of  regeneration,  and  the  eternal  happiness  of  good  men. 
Moreover,  it  cannot  be  denied,  that  among  different  sec- 
tions of  this  class  there  is  a  constantly  growing  harmony 
of  opinion  and  feeling,  —  a  harmony  which  has  been 
cherished,  more  than  by  any  other  agency,  by  the  care- 
ful study  of  the  original  Scriptures  with  the  perpetually 
increasing  apparatus  for  their  interpretation.  On  the 
other  hand,  we  find  in  some  portions  of  the  second  class 
a  virtual  polytheism,  insomuch  that  the  worship  of  God  is 
almost  forsaken  for  that  of  idols,  and  so  entire  a  rejection 
of  the  spiritual  element  in  religion,  that  salvation  is  ex- 
pected on  the  sole  condition  of  the  observance  of  a  ritual. 


RECORDS   OF   REVELATION.  7b 

Still  worse,  in  the  third  class,  there  are  those  who  openly 
deny  the  existence  of  a  personal  God,  cast  discredit  on 
the  most  important  parts  of  the  Gospel  history,  and  re- 
pudiate the  belief  of  a  conscious  immortality.  In  fine,  if 
you  will  take  the  two  forms  of  belief  that  have  the  least 
in  common,  maintained  by  those  w^ho  derive  their  faith 
from  the  Bible,  you  will  find  that  they  have  immeasm-a- 
bly  more  in  common,  than  either  of  them  has  with  the 
Romish  formaHsm  and  image-worship  on  the  one  hand, 
or  with  pantheism  on  the  other. 

We  now  inquire.  What  sort  of  scriptures  should  we 
expect  as  the  records  of  revelation  ?  I  answer,  first, 
that  revelation  would  necessarily  produce  a  literature  of 
a  peculiar  kind,  and  would  virtually  create  its  own  rec- 
ords. Suppose  such  a  series  of  revelations  as  the  Chris- 
tian believes  to  have  been  made,  —  a  special  divine 
movement  extending  over  many  ages  of  human  history, 
commencing  with  the  early  patriarchs,  rolling  on  in  suc- 
cessive waves  of  light  along  the  Ime  of  lawgivers  and 
judges,  kings,  priests,  and  prophets,  and  culminating  in 
Jesus  Christ.  Such  a  movement  would  necessarily  leave 
its  indelible  traces  in  the  records  of  human  thought  and 
experience.  It  would  be  in  this  respect  like  the  great 
movements  of  the  physical  universe.  The  tornado  has 
its  track,  marked  by  uprooted  trees  and  prostrate  ranks 
of  growing  grain.  The  shower  in  the  drought  of  mid- 
summer takes  its  path,  and  where  it  passes  there  are 
greenness,  bloom,  and  beauty,  with  parched  and  blighted 
herbage  on  either  side.  Thus  would  it  be  with  the 
mighty  movement  of  the  Divine  Spirit  over  the  souls  of 
men.  Where  miracles  were  witnessed,  where  super- 
human forms  appeared,  where  voices  from  heaven  were 


76  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

heard,  there  must  have  been  a  coiTespondlng  elevation 
of  the  mind  and  quickening  of  the  emotional  natm^e. 
Poetry  must  have  taken  on  a  loftier  inspiration,  a  purer 
flow,  a  profonnder  depth  of  meaning.  Precepts  must 
have  dropped  from  the  pen  of  the  wise  with  a  keener 
point  and  a  weightier  emphasis.  Truth,  not  surmised  or 
reasoned  out,  but  beheld  as  through  lightning-flashes  that 
parted  the  clouds  and  scattered  the  darkness  about  the. 
Omniscient  Mind,  must  have  been  announced  with  a  con- 
fidence and  an  authority  that  could  be  derived  from  no 
other  source.  And  if  a  being  who  bore  at  once  the  form 
of  man  and  the  image  of  God  dwelt  prolongedly  on  the 
earth,  and  conversed  familiarly  with  a  circle  of  intimate 
friends,  to  them,  so  to  speak,  the  lightning-flash  must 
have  been  continuous.  The  clouds  must  have  remained 
parted,  the  curtain  of  darkness  must  have  been  upHfted, 
while  they  were  with  him.  They  must  have  been  liter- 
ally bathed  in  light.  Truths  ordinarily  unseen  must 
have  been  so  long  and  so  vividly  visible  to  them  as  to 
leave  indelible  imao;es  on  the  mental  retina,  so  that  we 
should  have  from  them  self-verifying  representations  of 
nature  and  providence,  duty  and  destiny,  in  writings 
which  would  hardly  need  any  other  attestation  than  the 
keen  and  deep  insight  they  displayed.  Thus  would  rev- 
elation of  necessity  make  and  leave  its  own  record,  and 
subsequent  generations  could  gather  up  its  literary  me- 
morials, all  marked  by  infalHble  tokens  of  the  divine 
movement  in  which  they  had  their  birth. 

But  it  may  be  asked.  Is  it  conceivable  that  revelation 
should  have  been  left  to  the  incidental  literature  that 
would  necessarily  grow  from  it,  without  some  more  or- 
derly and  systematic  record  ?  Can  we  imagine  a  truly 
divine   element  in  writings  so  miscellaneous   and   frag- 


RECORDS   OF  REVELATION.  77 

mentary  as  the  Hebrew  and  Christian  Scriptures  ?  If 
God  had  a  message  or  a  series  of  messages  for  mankind, 
would  he  have  scattered  his  teachings,  counsels,  and 
promises,  morsel  by  morsel,  among  genealogies,  narra- 
tives of  wars  and  revolutions,  stories  of  human  folly  and 
guilt,  dreary  wastes  of  prosaic  detail  ?  Should  we  not 
have  expected  from  the  wisdom  of  a  self-revealing  God 
what  men  have  often  been  wise  enough  to  write,  —  a 
body  of  divinity,  a  compend  of  sacred  truth,  methodized 
under  appropriate  titles,  so  that  we  should  have  in 
one  part  of  the  record  an  outline  of  dogmatic  theology, 
in  another  an  ethical  code,  in  another  an  exposition  of 
human  nature  and  destiny,  in  another  a  digest  of  the 
religious  history  of  the  race  ?  The  Scriptures  might 
then  be  studied  like  a  school-book,  and  even  the  child 
might  be  thoroughly  fui'nished  with  an  accurate  knowl- 
edge of  divine  things,  to  which  nothing  more  need 
afterward  be  added.  I  answer,  that  if  a  council  of  wise 
and  good  men  had  been  commissioned  to  make  a  Bible 
with  a  divine  revelation  for  its  basis,  they  would  un- 
doubtedly have  made  a  systematic  treatise  «uch  as  I 
have  described.  But  of  what  use  would  it  haive  been  ? 
Dry,  homiletic,  fall  of  technical  phraseology,  it  would 
have  had  only  a  very  limited  and  slow  circulation,  and 
that  confined  to  persons  of  already  thoughtful  minds  and 
scholarly  habits.  It  would  have  had  for  its  readers  a  no 
larger  public  than  Cicero's  Tusculan  Disputations,  or  at 
most  than  Taylor's  Holy  Living  and  Dying,  or  Baxter's 
Saints'  Rest.  Bible  societies  would  have  had  their  issues 
returned  upon  their  hands. 

Scriptures  thus  written  would  also  have  narrowed  and 
behttled  religious  truth,  —  would  have  curtailed  the  In- 
finite not  only  to  the  dimensions  of  a  finite  mind,  but  to 


78  CHRISTIANITY   THE   RELIGION    OF   NATURE. 

proportions  which  that  mind  would  outgrow  ;  for  the  intel- 
lect that  comprehended  all  the  religious  truth  presented 
to  it  in  its  early  years  would  exceed  it,  overlap  it,  look 
down  upon  it,  in  the  pride  of  its  strength.  All  positive 
systems  are  thus  outgrown.  They  are  of  use  in  depart- 
ments of  knowledge  with  which  we  are  only  remotely 
concerned,  or  want  hut  a  slender  modicum  of  informa- 
tion. They  are,  too,  of  use  to  really  scientific  men  in 
their  novitiate,  but  no  longer.  No  man  becomes  a  pro- 
ficient in  any  science,  who  does  not  transcend  system, 
and  gather  up  new  truth  for  himself  in  the  boundless 
field  of  research.  In  religion  there  are  creeds  and  cate- 
chisms, man-made  bibles,  good  in  their  way,  which  pro- 
fess to  teach  the  whole  of  religion.  But  no  sooner  does 
.a  man  place  one  of  these  between  his  own  soul  and  the 
fragmentary,  miscellaneous  Bible  of  which  it  purports  to 
be  the  summary,  than  he  dwindles  into  a  theological 
pygmy,  has  all  his  powers  of  apprehension  and  reflection 
crippled  and  dwarfed,  and  thenceforth  moves,  not  even 
in  a  self-returning  circle,  but  in  a  constantly  diminishing 
spiral. 

One  chief  mark  of  genuineness,  of  accordance  with 
nature,  with  what  we  should  anticipate  from  the  Divine 
counsels,  in  the  Bible  that  we  have,  is  its  adaptation  to  a 
lifelong  study,,— its  expanding  breadth,  and  growing 
depth,  and  culminating  loftiness  of  meaning,  with  the 
enlargement  of  its  student's  own  powers, — its  constantly 
increasing  hold  upon  the  interest,  so  that  none  read .  it 
with  so  much  freshness  of  experience  and  vividness  of 
curiosity  as  those  who  are  most  familiar  with  it.  Study 
these  Scriptures  as  long  and  as  thoroughly  as  we  may, 
we  never  exhaust  their  riches,  or  fail  to  unearth  new 
wealth  of  significance.     And  we  always  find  more  than 


RECORDS   OF  REVELATION.  79 

we  seek.  When  we  dig  for  brass,  we  get  gold  ;  wlien 
for  gold,  rubies  and  diamonds  blaze  upon  our  sight.  St. 
Paul  alone  might  give  us  work  for  a  lifetime  ;  in  his 
Epistles  the  strata  of  spiritual  wisdom  grow  more  and 
more  precious,  the  deeper  we  mine  them  ;  and  one  might 
be  daily  conversant  with  them  for  half  a  century,  and 
then  leave  the  world  with  few  wishes  so  dear  to  his  heai't 
as  that  of  renewing  in  heaven  with  that  glorious  leader 
of  the  Church  mihtant  and  triumphant  the  themes  in 
which  he  had  inspired  and  guided  the  meditations  of  the 
earthly  pilgrimage. 

Again,  we  shoul'd  expect  in  the  records  of  revelation 
a  wide  diversity  of  form,  style,  and  method,  in  order  to 
attract  widely  various  classes  of  mmds.  As  I  have  said, 
a  didactic  compend  would  have  been  rejected  by  the 
mass  of  readers.  The  natural  method  of  diffusing  the 
seedling  principles  of  religious  truth  might  be  suggested 
by  what  annually  takes  place  in  the  diffusion  of  the 
germs  of  vegetable  life.  The  seeds  that  spring  up  in 
verdure  and  beauty  by  the  wayside,  on  the  mountain,  in 
the  forest,  sown  by  no  mortal  hand,  have  their  seed-time 
provided  for,  their  propagation  in  new  localities  insured, 
their  harvests  guaranteed,  by  being  connected  with  some 
one  or  more  of  the  ever-moving  forces  of  nature.  Some 
are  wafted  to  their  beds  on  downy  ^vings  by  autumnal 
winds.  Some  are  borne  on  the  fleeces  of  migratory  an- 
imals, to  vary  the  panorama  in  scenes  where  their  kind 
had  never  before  found  lodgement.  Some  are  floated 
on  rills  of  melting  snow,  or  on  rain-swollen  brooks  and 
torrents,  and  sown  in  the  genial  soil  prepared  for  them  by 
the  subsiding  waters.  Thus  would  it  natui'ally  be  with 
the  seeds  of  religious  truth.  In  mass  they  would  have 
no  power  of  self-diffusion  or  self-transmission.     But  1  Dok 


80  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

at  our  Bible,  and  see  how  admii'ably  it  answers  this  con* 
dition.  In  this  marvellous  series  of  books  the  seed  of  the 
immortal  harvest,  whose  germination  is  to  renew  the 
soul  and  transform  the  character,  is  attached  to  all  that 
can  attract  and  interest  man  in  his  neediness  and  sin- 
fulness, in  his  yearnings  and  asphations.  Here  it  is 
imbedded  in  the  winning  portraiture  of  some  venerable 
saint,  or  in  the  startling  experiences  of  some  God-defying 
sinner ;  there,  in  the  wonderful  vicissitudes  of  a  nation's 
fortunes,  rising  or  sinking,  illustrious  or  disastrous,  in  the 
ratio  of  its  loyalty  or  its  profligacy.  Again  it  is  borne 
on  the  sweet  current  of  holy  song.  Then  it  forms  the 
freight  of  the  whole  touching  narrative  of  the  Saviour's 
life,  from  the  hour  when  angels  herald  his  birth  till  they 
watch  with  the  apostles  his  ascension  on  high,  when  the 
everlasting  gates  are  opened  that  the  King  of  glory  may 
come  in.  Then  it  is  conveyed  in  the  close  and  pun- 
gent logic  of  Paul,  in  the  terse,  sententious  ethical 
discourse  of  James,  in  the  tender  breathings  and  the 
ecstatic  visions  of  the  loving  John.  There  is  that  in  the 
Bible  which  may  arrest  the  attention  a«d  win  the  regard 
of  human  beings  of  every  age,  condition,  and  culture, 
—  which  may  fix  the  child's  delighted  interest,  and  at 
the  same  time  kindle  the  imagination  of  a  Milton  or  a 
Klopstock,  initiate  a  Newton,  a  Locke,  a  Boyle,  into  a 
profounder  philosophy  than  that  of  matter  or  of  mind, 
engross  and  crown  the  life-toil  of  a  Lardner,  a  Paley, 
a  Neander.  Thus  in  every  form  in  which  men's  minds 
and  hearts  can  be  reached  do  these  records  convey  the 
incorruptible  seed  to  its  genial  bed  in  the  soul,  attesting 
the  divine  element  in  them,  more  than  by  all  things 
else,  by  their  fitness  for  human  nature,  by  their  close 
human  adaptations,  relations,  and  sympathies. 


RECORDS    OF   REVELATION.  81 

The  miscellaneousness  of  our  Scriptures  is  natural, 
also,  because  we  trace  in  them  in  this  very  particular 
God's  wonted  method  of  teaching,  the  stretching  forth 
of  the  line  that  goes  out  to  all  the  earth,  the  likeness  of 
the  unwritten  word  that  reaches  to  the  ends  of  the  world. 
Not  with  square  and  compasses  of  man's  device  has  God 
built  the  earth,  and  meted  out  the  heavens.  His  crea- 
tion is  miscellaneous,  broken  at  every  point,  —  here  a 
sheltered  valley,  there  a  profound  abyss,  on  one  side  a 
mountain  with  its  summit  in  the  clouds,  on  the  other 
a  leaping  cataract,  while  off  in  the  distance  the  waves 
lift  up  their  voice,  and  in  the  depths  above  the  stars  move 
each  on  its  separate  path,  and  shine  each  with  a  differing 
glory.  When  I  look  into  the  Bible,  I  behold  there  the 
same  sublime  diversity,  —  on  one  leaf,  as  it  were  pastures 
clothed  with  flocks,  and  valleys  covered  over  with  corn, 
where  all  that  grows  is  ripe  for  use,  and  the  most  igno- 
rant wayfarer  cannot  reacli  out  his  hand  in  vain  ;  and  on 
the  next  leaf,  heights  and  depths  in  which  are  the  hidings 
of  His  power,  and  which  it  may  tax  the  loftiest  faculties 
of  successive  generations  to  scale  and  fathom.  I  follow 
the  Saviour  into  quiet  home-scenes,  where  kind  and  fa- 
miliar words  flow  as  from  the  lips  of  any  holy  son  of  man, 
and  then  go  up  with  him  on  the  mountain  where  the 
brightness  of  heaven  glows  in  his  face  and  gleams  from 
his  raiment,  and  then  look  on  the  dread  mystery  of  Geth- 
semane,  the  bloody  sweat,  the  agony,  the  angel  that 
came  to  strengthen  him  ;  and  for  this  blending,  alternat- 
ing, mutual  interpenetrating  of  the  genially  human  and 
the  ineffably  Divine,  I  trace  only  the  more  readily  the 
image  of  the  God  whom  in  part  we  see  and  know,  as  we 
do  the  countenance  of  a  brother,  yet  about  whose  throne 
rest  clouds  and  darkness.  I  mark  in  the  Bible  the  Divine 
4*  F 


82  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

Providence  in  the  even  current  of  human  affairs  unruffled 
by  marvel  as  in  any  common  history  or  biography,  — 
then  replenishing  the  widow's  wasting  oil-cruse,  —  then 
spreading  darkness  over  a  whole  land,  rending  its  rocks, 
unsealing  its  sepulchres  ;  and  for  this  combination  of  the 
unemphatic,  the  quiet,  the  grand,  and  the  terrible,  I 
seem  to  read  only  the  more  natural  and  lifelike  record 
of  Him  who  smiles  upon  us  in  the  wayside  flower,  and 
then  moves  in  storm,  earthquake,  and  tempest,  lashes  the 
writhing  waves,  rides  on  the  wings  of  the  whirlwind, 
terrifies  the  nations.  And  what  though  in  this  mis- 
cellany there  be  much  which  on  a  superficial  reading  we 
cannot  understand,  —  much  that  transcends  our  use,  — 
much,  too,  that  is  beneath  the  standard  of  our  age  and 
culture  ?  The  Bible  purports  to  be  the  record  of  the 
means  employed  for  the  spiritual  education  of  men  from 
the  birth  of  Adam  to  the  end  of  time,  and  for  their 
education  for  an  inconceivably  lofty  and  expanded  sphere 
of  being.  In  this  record  there  would  naturally  be  some 
thino"s  which  had  their  use  and  wrouo:ht  their  work 
long  ago,  having  been  adapted  to  the  culture  of  genera- 
tions whose  condition  and  habits  we  know  too  imper- 
fectly to  perceive  the  divine  adaptation  to  their  needs 
which  may  have  existed,  —  many  things  which  may 
develop  their  full  meaning  only  to  generations  of  higher 
intelligence  and  timer  faith  than  ours,  —  many  things, 
also,  which,  pondered  and  inwardly  digested,  will  reveal 
new  and  growing  depths  of  meaning  to  our  own  hearts, 
—  many  things,  it  may  be,  wdiich,  received  into  our 
minds,  yet  not  fully  germinating  here,  may  spring  up, 
and  blossom,  and  bear  fruit  in  heaven. 

If,   on  the  grounds  which   I  have  now  urged,  it  be 
granted  that  a  revelation  was  likely  to  be  committed  to 


RECORDS   OF  REVELATION.  83 

writing,  not  in  a  set  treatise  or  in  a  strictly  didactic  form, 
but  in  such  a  diversity  of  methods  as  to  meet  the  endless 
variety  of  human  tastes  and  wants,  we  next  ask.  What 
relation  would  such  records  naturally  sustain  to  the  man- 
ners, opinions,  culture,  and  literature  of  their  times  ? 
Would  they,  in  everything  except  the  divine  truth  they 
contained,  have  borne  marks  of  their  human  authorship, 
birth-land,  and  birth-time,  of  imperfect  knowledge,  nar- 
row philosophical  conceptions,  national  habits  of  thought, 
popular  imagery,  provincial  idioms  ?  Or  would  they 
have  been  conformed  to  some  high  ideal  standard,  so 
that  they  should  transcend  all  other  literature  of  their 
times  in  purity  of  style,  accuracy  of  opinion,  precision 
of  historical  and  statistical  detail,  freedom  from  local  and 
national  characteristics,  —  thus  belonging  peculiarly  to 
no  one  century  or  people,  but  bearing  an  equal  relation 
to  all  lands  and  all  ages  ?  Let  us  test  the  latter  alter- 
native. 

We  will  suppose  at  the  outset  ideally  perfect  scrip- 
tures, such  as  we  might  imagine  to  have  resulted  from 
the  verbal  dictation  of  the  Divine  Spirit.  But  is  this  a 
conceivable  hypothesis  ?  If  we  admit  for  sacred  scrip- 
tures a  divine  authorship  in  the  sense  in  which  we  un- 
derstand human  authorship,  is  there  any  style  or  method 
of  which  human  language  is  susceptible  which  would 
not  fall  below  even  our  least  adequate  conceptions  of  the 
mind  of  God  ?  Or  if  there  were,  would  it  not  transcend 
the  comprehension  as  far  as  it  would  exceed  the  ability 
of  ordinary  mortals  ?  In  order  to  be  understood,  would 
it  not  be  necessary  for  the  Divine  Author  to  fall  below 
the  ideally  perfect,  —  to  descend  to  the  common  arena 
of  authorship,  and  simply  to  indite  more  finished  history, 
more  eloquent  didactic  prose,  loftier  poetry,  than  could  be 


84  CHRISTIANITY  THE   KELIGION   OF   NATURE. 

found  in  any  other  writings  of  the  time,  but  subject  to 
the  same  standards  of  criticism  by  which  they  are  tried, 
Hable  to  the  same  limitations  from  the  poverty  of  diction, 
and  sure,  in  the  progress  of  knowledge,  the  development 
of  language,  and  the  enlargement  of  the  scope  of  thought, 
to  bear  a  less  favorable  comparison  with  subsequent  than 
with  contemporary  literature  ?  Now  this  literary  com- 
petition with  man,  if  you  will  suflFer  the  phrase,  is  re- 
volting to  every  sentiment  of  reverence.  But  this  is 
not  by  any  means  the  only  argument  against  the  theoiy 
which  would  exempt  sacred  scriptures  from  the  liabiUties 
and  imperfections  of  human  authorship.  Let  us  follow  it 
farther. 

The  records  of  revelation,  in  order  to  be  transmitted  to 
coming  ages,  must  have  their  hold  and  do  their  work  on 
the  men  of  theu^  own  time.  Suppose  the  age  when 
these  records  are  reduced  to  writing  to  be  a  grossly 
material  age,  and  one  which  has  only  somewhat  coarse 
material  imagery  for  the  expression  of  spiritual  truth,  the 
scriptures  constructed  on  this  theory  must  reject  all  such 
imagery,  and  play  endless  changes  on  the  few,  vague, 
and  seldom  employed  abstract  words  and  phrases  which 
the  language  may  afford.  The  classica'  Greek  might 
have  famished  a  very  few  such  words  ;  I  am  not  certain 
that  there  is  one  in  the  earlier  Hebrew ;  the  Rabbinical 
dialect  has  two  or  three.  But  such  as  they  were,  they 
must  have  been  employed,  and  ordinary  readers  would 
have  been  repelled  or  hopelessly  pei;plexed.  Then,  again, 
in  geography,  astronomy,  natural  philosophy,  therapeu- 
tics, such  scriptures  must  recognize  no  prevailing  error,  — 
no,  not  though  it  were  one  that  had  w^rought  itself  into 
the  current  belief  and  speech  of  all  men.  Instead  of 
speaking  of  sunrise  and  sunset,  they  must  expound  the 


EECORDS   OF  REVELATION.  85 

laws  of  planetary  motion.  Instead  of  using  for  the  sky 
the  designation  of  firmmnent  (which  denotes  a  sohd 
sphere  of  crystal,  supposed  to  be  at  the  farthest  a  few 
miles  above  the  earth's  surface),  they  must  employ 
phrases  that  imply  the  vastness  of  celestial  spaces.  In- 
stead of  referring  to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  they  must 
explain  its  rotundity.  Instead  of  calling  insane  persons 
Lunatics,  they  must  enter  a  special  disclaimer  against  the 
influence  of  the  moon  in  cerebral  disease.  Nay,  more, 
we,  in  our  enlightened  century,  have  doubtless  a  great 
deal  yet  to  learn,  errors  in  our  philosophy  to  correct, 
wtder  generalizations  to  make  ;  and  scriptures  conformed 
to  the  absolute  truth  of  nature  and  science  must  be  on 
a  level  with  the  scientific  world  many  centuries  hence. 
Now  books  thus  written  would  have  been  in  part  unmtel- 
ligible  to  the  men  of  their  own  times,  and,  so  far  as  they 
were  understood,  would  have  run  so  entirely  counter  to 
their  received  opinions  on  extra-religious  subjects,  as  to 
awaken  incredulity  as  to  their  religious  contents.  Scien- 
tific truth  can  be  legitimately  reached  only  step- wise, 
often  with  age-long  preparation  for  a  new  step  in  ad- 
vance, often  with  a  long  interval  between  the  announce- 
ment and  the  popular  reception  of  a  new  fact,  theory,  or 
law.  Scientifically  accurate  scriptures  would  have  had 
laid  upon  them  the  impossible  task  of  anticipating  this 
progress,  of  revolutionizing  men's  notions  about  the  uni- 
verse before  they  knew  the  reasons  for  changing  them ; 
and  failing  of  this,  they  would  necessarily  have  failed  of 
a  hospitable  reception  for  their  religious  contents.  We 
should  therefore  have  expected  that  scriptures  written 
undsr  the  guidance  of  a  more  than  human  wisdom,  and 
freighted  by  the  providence  of  God  w^ith  truth  for  the 
illumination   and   redemption   of  mankind,  would   have 


86  CHRISTIANITY   THE   RELIGION   OF   NATURE. 

wasted  none  of  their  power  in  teaching  geogi'aphj,  as- 
tronomy, or  philosophy,  but  would  have  employed  on  all 
these  subjects  the  current  speech  and  method  of  their 
times,  would  have  used  the  popular  phraseology,  though 
founded  on  ignorance,  and  would  have  concentrated  all 
their  force  of  representation  on  the  great  themes  as  to 
which  alone  they  were  destined  to  be  the  light  of  the 
world. 

Still  further,  sacred  scriptures  needed  to  take  with 
their  contents  proofs  of  their  genuineness  from  their  own 
down  to  future  and  far  distant  ages.  It  concerns  us 
above  all  things  to  know  whether  our  Scriptures  wefe 
written  at  the  times  when  they  severally  purport  to  have 
been  written.  But  where  would  be  the  evidence  of  this, 
if  they  were  conformed  to  the  standard  of  knowledge  and 
science  existing  in  the  nineteenth  century  or  destined  to 
exist  in  the  twenty-ninth,  —  if  in  their  divine  perfect- 
ness  of  finish  they  were  swept  clear  of  all  traces  of  the 
ruder  and  more  ignorant  ages  from  which  we  believe 
them  to  have  been  transmitted  ?  Foremost  among  the 
proofs  of  their  genuineness  are  these  very  birthmarks 
which  they  indelibly  bear ;  —  in  the  Old  Testament 
numerous  traces  of  an  unhistorical  method  of  narration, 
of  infantile  conceptions  as  to  the  extent  and  relations  of 
the  universe,  and  of  such  scientific  notions  as  men  had 
before  the  birth  of  science  ;  in  the  New  Testament, 
a  Hellenistic  Greek  which  has  little  in  common  with 
Attic  terseness  and  purity,  bristling  all  over  with  Hebrew 
idioms,  with  not  a  few  untranslated  Syro-Chaldaic  words, 
—  m  fine,  a  dialect  which  a  century  after  the  destruction 
of  Jerusalem  could  not  have  been  written  by  any  man 
living.  Bishop  Colenso's  book  on  the  Pentateuch  and 
Joshua  needs  only  an  altered  animus  on   the  writer's 


EECORDS   OF   REVELATION.  87 

part  to  become  a  plea  for  their  genuineness.  The  argu- 
ment turns  solely  on  certain  alleged  inaccuracies  and 
inconsistencies  in  genealogies,  numerals,  and  statistics,  — 
or.  the  very  features  which  characterize  all  early  attempts 
at  history,  and  which  belong  emphatically  to  Herodotus, 
though  he  was  a  much-travelled,  all-inquiring,  pains- 
taking seeker  after  historical  truth.^  Had  these  Hebrew 
writers  drawn  up  their  genealogies  as  if  they  were  copy- 

1  When  this  Lecture  was  written,  only  the  First  Part  of  Bishop  Colenso's 
worlv  had  appeared.  The  author  has  not  yet  seen  the  Third  Part.  The  argu- 
ment of  the  Second  Part  rests  wholly  on  the  literal  construction  of  the  Hebrew 
verb  Py^  (know),  in  Exodus  vi.  3 :  "  I  appeared  unto  Abraham,  unto  Isaac, 
and  unto  Jacob  by  the  name  of  God  Almighty,  but  by  my  name  Jehovah 
was  I  not  knoion  to  them."  The  name  Jehovah  does,  nevertheless,  occur  in 
the  biographies  of  those  very  patriarchs.  Yet  that  it  was  not  in  common 
use  until  Samuel's  time  and  afterward  would  appear  from  its  being  seldom 
used  before  that  period  in  the  composition  of  proper  names,  while  El  was 
often  so  used,  and  also  from  the  fact  that,  in  a  portion  of  the  Psalms  ascribed 
to  David,  some  of  which  bear  marks  of  being  —while  others,  by  Colenso's 
usual  circular  method  of  reasoning  are  assumed  to  be  —  the  earliest,  the  title 
Elohim  prevails,  while  Jehovah  occurs  in  those  purporting  or  assumed  to  be 
the  latest.  Now  the  Pentateuch  must  have  been  written  after  the  name 
Jehovah  had  come  into  current  use  as  the  national  designation  of  the  God  of 
the  Hebrews.  Therefore  it  could  not  have  been  written  by  Moses,  or  by  any 
person  earlier  than  Samuel,  who  probably  wrote  a  considerable  portion  of  it. 

So  far  as  this  argument  is  valid,  it  bears  not  against  the  Mosaic  authorship, 
but  against,  any  intelligent  and  honest  authorship*  or  editorship  of  the  Penta- 
teuch. Certainly  the  discrepancy  on  which  it  is  founded  is  too  obvious  and 
too  utterly  irreconcilable  to  have  escaped  the  notice  of  the  man  or  men  who 
first  made  of  the  five  books  one  book,  or  of  the  people  generally  when  they 
began  to  regard  the  Pentateuch  as  consecutive  history.  The  author  of  Exo- 
dus would  have  stultified  himself  by  making  the  statement  attributed  to  him 
by  Colenso,  seeing  that  he  must  necessarily  have  been,  conversant  either  with 
Genesis  in  its  finished  form,  or  with  the  records  from  which  it  was  compiled, 
in  which  the  name  Jehovah  is  so  often  and  fomiliarly  employed.  The  obvious 
laws  of  interpretation,  the  genius  of  the  Hebrew  tongue,  the  latitude  of  use 
which  we  find  attached  to  the  Hebrew  verb  on  which  the  question  turns,  and 
tlie  somewhat  flexible  signification  which  the  corresponding  verb  has  in  every 
language,  authorize  us  to  regard  the  passage  under  discussion  as  denoting 
simply  that  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  did  not  employ  Jehovah  as  their 
accustomed  and  formal  designation  of  the  Almighty,  —  an  exposition  which 
Harmonizes  perfectly  with  the  notices  of  their  history  in  Genesis. 


88  CHRISTIANITY  THE  EELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

ing  from  accurately  collated  family  records;  had  they 
dealt  with  numerals  as  skilful  arithmeticians  ;  had  their 
narration  been  precise  and  methodical,  like  the  carefully 
compiled  annals  of  one  of  our  New  England  towns,  — 
he  would  be  a  bold  man  who  would  claim  for  their  books 
the  venerable  antiquity  from  which  they  purport  to  have 
come  down  to  us.  The  very  characteristics  of  these  books 
which  have  given  ground  for  ignorant  cavil  show  most 
conclusively  that  they  belong  to  the  early  infancy  of 
written  language,  —  to  an  age  when  historical  research, 
the  comparative  criticism  of  documents  and  traditions, 
and  artistical  authorship,  had  not  begun  to  be. 

Yet,  while  as  regards  all  subjects  except  religion  we 
should  expect  the  authentic  records  of  revelation  to  be 
conformed  to  the  current  opinions,  the  ignorances,  and 
the  errors  of  their  times  and  authors,  we  should,  on  the 
other  hand,  expect  to  see  the  frequent  outcropping  of  the 
Divine  element  in  strong  contrast  with  the  human  sur- 
roundings, position,  and  culture  of  those  same  authors. 
On  the  one  hand,  we  should  look  in  such  scriptures  for 
characteristics  which  mark  the  age  and  people  whence 
they  sprang  ;  on  the  other  hand,  for  characteristics  which 
unmistakably  mark  the  specially  Divine  origin  of  their 
religious  contents.  Or,  to  vary  the  form  of  statement, 
we  should  anticipate  at  once  such  scriptures  as  none 
but  their  reputed  authors  could  have  written,  and  such 
scriptures  as  neither  they  nor  any  other  men  could  have 
written  except  through  the  direct  or  transmitted  inspira- 
tion of  God.  Now,  in  examining  our  sacred  books,  we 
find  precisely  the  contrast  between  the  biographies  of  the 
writers  and  the  religious  contents  of  the  writings  which 
we  should  expect  to  find  in  authentic  records  of  revela- 
tion.    Take  the  case  of  Moses,  who,  if  not  the  compiler 


RECOEDS   OF  KEVELATION.  89 

of  the  Pentateuch,  must  have  been  the  vhtual  author  of 
a  very  large  portion  of  it.  We  see  him  the  nurshng  of  a 
corrupt  court,  the  quick  and  reckless  avenger,  even  to 
blood,  of  an  insult  offered  to  a  brother-Hebrew,  a  hunted 
fugitive  from  justice,  for  many  years  an  under-shepherd 
in  a  tribe  of  idolatrous  nomads,  and  during  his  subse- 
quent official  life  hasty,  irascible,  and  querulous.  Whence, 
then,  that  theology  in  its  sublime  personal  monotheism 
standing  out  alone  from  all  antiquity,  —  that  code  of 
social  morals  so  rigidly  just,  so  touchingly  humane,  — 
that  Decalogue  embodying  more  of  practical  ethics  and 
religion  than  the  rest  of  mankind  had  conceived  of  till 
Christ  came,  and  needing  from  him  to  make  it  perfect 
only  the  light  of  his  example  and  the  sanction  of  his 
revealed  immortality  ?  David  was  a  rude  and  barbarous 
chieftain  ;  his  throne  was  disgraced,  his  gray  hairs  dis- 
honored, by  the  foulest  licentiousness,  and  by  deeds  of 
atrocious  violence  and  malignity  which  even  the  savage 
manners  of  his  age  cannot  palliate.  Whence  then  those 
strains  of  lyric  devotion,  which  more  than  fill  the  purest 
aspirations  of  the  most  saintly  among  the  children  of 
men,  and  which  awaken  no  sense  of  irrelevancy  when 
we  think  of  them  as  the  vehicle  of  praise  and  prayer 
for  the  Sinless  and  Heaven-Born  on  the  eve  of  his  cru- 
cifixion ?  The  writers  of  the  New  Testament  appear  in 
its  historical  portions  very  far  from  faultless,  —  Peter 
by  turns  the  braggart  and  the  renegade,  capable  of  the 
meanest  falsehood  when  every  manly  attribute  cried 
shame  upon  him,  —  John  filled  with  paltry  jealousy, 
and  fiercely  bitter  in  his  resentment,  —  Paul  the  trucu- 
lent and  unrelenting  persecutor,  even  of  helpless  women. 
Yet  in  their  writings  what  depth  of  spiritual  insight, 
what  ripeness  of  ethical  wisdom,  what  severity  of  dis- 


90  CHRISTIAITITY   THE   KELIGION   OF   NATUEE. 

crimination,  what  a  pure  and  lofty  standard  of  conduct 
and  character  !  We  cannot  get  rid  of  the  divine  ele- 
ment. Infidels  are  fond  of  dwelling  on  the  folhes  and 
crimes  of  these  writers.  They  barb  the  keenest  shafts 
of  Paine's  scurrility.  They  are  a  constantly  recurring 
theme  in  Voltaire's  Philosophical  Dictionary.  They 
often  reappear  in  the  naturalistic  writings  of  our  own 
day.  We  rejoice  to  have  them  set  forth  in  the  fullest 
prominence  ;  for  the  greater  the  stress  laid  upon  them, 
the  more  utterly  impossible  is  it  to  deny  that  the  power 
of  the  Highest  overshadowed  these  men,  and  that  they 
wrote  as  they  were  moved  by  the  spirit  of  God. 

I  pass  to  another  point.  While  we  should  expect  iu 
the  records  of  revelation  the  current  style  of  then-  birth- 
age  and  birth-land,  with  all  its  limitations,  imperfections, 
impurities,  provincialisms,  and  that  style  still  further 
affected  by  whatever  in  each  individual  writer  was  un- 
favorable to  finished  authorship,  we  should  also  expect  to 
find  frequent  marks  of  the  Divine  impulse  and  influence 
in  the  expression  no  less  than  in  the  thought.  All  strong 
movements  upon  the  mind  betray  themselves  in  pecu- 
Harly  condensed  and  vivid  forms  of  utterance.  Now, 
our  sacred  books  bear,  in  instances  too  numerous  to  be 
specified,  this  mark  of  their  alleged  character.  They 
abound  in  passages  in  which  a  single  phrase  or  word  is 
charged  with  a  richness  of  meaning  and  an  intensity  of 
force,  indicating  the  mightiest  of  all  influences  on  the 
consciousness  of  the  writer.  What  elsewhere  would  fill 
a  tedious  treatise,  is  here  globed  in  a  sentence  or  a  frag- 
ment of  a  sentence.  A  metaphor,  an  allegory,  a  parable, 
of  a  dozen  fines,  comprehends  the  pith  and  power  of  a 
volume  of  didactic  wisdom.  The  story  of  the  prodigal 
son  contains  more  soul  than  we  can  find  in  a  whole  folio 


RECORDS   OF  REVELATION.  91 

body  of  divinity.  The  Twenty-Third  Psalm  tells  more 
of  the  Divine  Providence  than  a  disquisition  which  it 
would  take  years  to  write  and  weeks  to  read.  There 
are  isolated  sayings  of  the  Bible  that  have  formed  the 
life-long  nourishment  of  Christians,  and  given  them  their 
sufficing  viaticum  for  their  last  journey.  I  remember  an 
instance  in  which  a  man  of  fine  powers  and  large  culture 
said  on  his  recovery  from  an  attack  of  illness  which  kept 
him  for  many  weeks  in  daily  expectation  of  death,  that 
his  life  for  those  weeks  (and  it  was  a  perfectly  happy 
life)  was  but  a  prolonged  rumination  on  a  brief  text  of 
Scripture,  into  which  his  whole  consciousness  seemed  to 
project  itself,  —  in  which  his  soul  was  clothed  as  in 
an  impregnable  panoply  against  fear,  doubt,  and  suffer- 
ing. With  other  good  books  we  gladly  become  familiar; 
their  brilliant  sayings  fix  themselves  in  the  memory; 
their  rhythm  glides  softly  and  sweetly  through  the  inward 
ear  ;  but  it  is  not  to  these  that  we  resort  in  the  stress  of 
need,  —  it  is  not  these  that  we  rehearse  at  the  death-bed 
or  in  the  house  of  mourning.  It  is  in  the  very  words  of 
prophet  and  psalmist,  apostle  and  Saviour,  that  men 
fortify  themselves  in  trial,  in  bereavement,  under  the 
death-shadow. 

It  does  not  accord  with  my  purpose,  nor  does  it  fall 
rrithin  the  limits  assigned  to  my  course,  to  exhibit  the 
positive  proof — to  my  own  mind  irresistible  —  that  the 
Hebrew  and  Christian  Scriptures  are  the  authentic  and 
trustworthy  records  of  Divine  revelation.  They  in  fact 
rest  on  a  stronger  basis  of  evidence  than  we  have  in 
behalf  of  the  genuineness  of  the  undoubted  works  of  the 
best  writers  of  Greece  and  Rome  ;  and  their  genuine- 
ness  is  impugned  on  grounds  on  which,  if  admitted,  we 
should  be  compelled  to  reject  all  our  established  beHefs 


92  CHRISTIANITY   THE  KELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

with  regard  to  the  Hterature  of  antiquity.  My  aim  has 
been  to  show  you,-  first,  what  sort  of  sacred  writings  the 
religion  of  nature  might  authorize  us  to  expect,  and,  sec- 
ondly, how  perfectly  our  sacred  writings  fulfil  the  condi- 
tions which  we  should  establish  on  grounds  of  a  priori 
probability.  I  rejoice  to  have  performed  such  an  office 
for  these  writings,  —  not  that  they  need  my  advocacy, 
but  that  they  claim  every  expression  that  I  can  give  of 
my  grateful  trust  and  reverence. 


LECTURE    V. 

THE   LOVE    OF    GOD. 

In  the  Lectures  I  have  ah-eady  given  I  have  shown 
the  accordance  of  revelation,  miracles,  and  authentic 
scriptures,  with  what  the  religion  of  nature  might  lead 
us  to  anticipate.  The  contents  of  a  divine  revelation, 
however,  must  be  in  great  part  such  as  could  not 
have  been  anticipated  on  natural  grounds  ;  for  it  is  the 
depth  of  man's  native  ignorance,  and  his  destitution  of 
adequate  soui'ces  of  religious  knowledge,  that  constitute 
the  need  and  create  the  antecedent  probability  of  a  rev- 
elation. Yet  there  is  one  important  distniction  to  which 
I  solicit  your  emphatic  heed.  The  discovery  and  the 
verification  of  truth  are  two  entirely  different  processes  ; 
and  the  faculties  which  are  inadequate  for  the  former 
process  may  be  amply  sufficient  for  the  iatter.  Thus 
the  Copernican  system  could  not  have  been  discovered 
earlier  than  it  was  discovered  ;  for  it  was  not  the  happy 
conjecture  of  the  one  man  whose  name  it  bears,  but  it 
marked  the  stage  of  progress  which  astronomical  science 
had  attained  in  his  day  :  yet,  had  it  been  announced  a 
thousand  years  earlier,  there  was  science  enough  in 
India,  at  Alexandria,  and  among  the  Arabs,  to  verify  it. 
The  rules  of  navigation  are  the  progressive  discovery  of 
many  centuries^,  and  not  one  navigator  in  a  thousand 
understands  the  principles  on  which  they  are  based  ;  yet 
three  months'  study  and  a  couple  of  voyages  will  enable 


94  CHEISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

one  to  verify  them.  The  laws  of  projectiles  have  been 
discovered  only  by  the  profoundest  processes  of  mathe- 
matical analysis,  and  are  expressed  in  formulas  which 
only  the  tramed  mathematician  can  read  ;  every  gunner 
in  the  army  and  navy  can  verify  them. 

In  the  realm  of  religious  truth  man  may  verify  what 
he  could  not  discover.  Thus,  though  he  might  not 
attain  by  his  own  intuition  or  reasoning  to  just  views 
of  the  Divine  nature  and  administration,  he  may  know 
whether  the  views  presented  harmonize  with  his  own 
observation  and  experience.  Though  he  might  not  con- 
struct for  himself  a  perfect  code  of  ethics,  he  may,  by 
putting  such  precepts  of  duty  as  are  given  to  him  to  the 
test  of  practice,  ascertain  whether  obedience  to  them 
tends  to  his  usefalness,  happiness,  and  highest  good. 
Though  he  might  not  without  revelation  feel  sure  of 
immortality,  still  less  of  any  detailed  characteristics  of 
the  blessed  life,  he  may  test  what  is  revealed  to  him 
concerning  the  future  destiny  of  man  by  its  adaptation 
to  his  nature,  his  desires,  and  his  aspirations.  Conscious- 
ness and  experience,  therefore,  though  they  could  never 
supply  the  place  of  revelation,  may  furnish  the  strongest 
possible  evidence  of  the  genuineness  of  a  revelation.  In 
point  of  fact,  while  Christians  who  are  both  intelligent  and 
devout  find  in  the  historical  evidences  of  their  religion 
ample  materials  for  the  refutation  of  unbelief,  their  faith 
rests  more  on  their  own  consciousness  than  on  outward 
testimony.  Testimony  assures  them  that  their  religion 
is  true  ;  consciousness,  that  it  cannot  but  be  true.  In- 
deed, we  should  antecedently  expect  to  be  able  to  verify 
the  truths  of  revelation,  some  of  them  fully,  others  ap- 
proximately ;  for  if  He  who  created  the  soul  of  man  and 
administers  the  government  of  the  universe  makes  a  rev- 


THE   LOVE   OF   GOD.  95 

elation,  its  contents  must  of  necessity  be  in  harmony  with 
the  souls  that  he  has  created  and  the  government  that 
he  administers.  And  these  contents,  so  far  as  they  are 
thus  verified,  are  natural  religion  ;  for  they  are  capable 
of  being  verified  only  because  they  are  in  accordance 
with  the  nature  of  the  universe  and  of  man. 

I  will  ask  you,  in  the  remainder  of  this  course,  to 
verify  with  me  some  of  the  contents  of  the  Christian 
revelation.  I  would  speak  first  of  the  character  of 
God,  as  it  appears  under  the  light  of  nature  to  the  eyes 
which  revelation  has  unsealed.  The  prominent  featm'es 
of  the  Christian  idea  of  God  —  peculiar  features,  I  would 
contend,  for,  though  they  have  entered  into  the  belief  of 
modern  deists,  we  do  not  find  them  before  Christ,  except 
in  those  earlier  revelations  which  were  foreshinings  of 
Christianity  —  are,  first,  the  perfect  love  of  God,  includ- 
ing his  paternal  relation  to  man  and  his  all-embracing 
providence,  and,  secondly,  his  holiness  or  supreme  refer- 
ence to  moral  distinctions.  The  first  of  these,  God's 
perfect  love,  will  occupy  our  attention  in  the  present 
Lecture. 

We  remark  at  the  outset,  that  among  the  ends  or  final 
causes  which  we  have  been  able  to  discover  in  nature, 
there  are  none  Avhich  are  otherwise  than  beneficent. 
There  is  no  one  contrivance  for  the  production  of  evil,  — 
no  nerve  that  was  made  to  ache,  no  sense  adapted  to 
deceive,  no  process  whose  natural  working  creates  mis- 
ery, no  faculty  the  normal  exercise  of  which  interferes 
with  happiness,  no  portion  of  the  system  or  course  of 
nature  which  is  intrinsically  and  necessarily  malign  in  its 
influence,  no  cause  of  annoyance  or  injury  which  man  may 
not,  in  the  ordinary  exercise  of  his  powers,  either  remove, 


96  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

avoid,  subdue,  or  utilize.  Now,  in  a  universe  full  of  the 
tokens  of  design,  this  state  of  things  could  not  exist, 
were  not  the  Creator  positively  benevolent.  Were  he 
malevolent,  the  malign  purpose  would  be  patent  and 
palpable.  Were  he  simply  indifferent  to  the  happiness 
of  liis  creatures,  that  indifference  would  manifest  itself  in 
the  choice  of  the  most  direct  means  to  the  attainment 
of  ultimate  ends,  without  any  reference  to  the  tendency 
of  those  means  to  produce  happiness  or  misery.  For 
instance,  death  must  be  an  ultimate,  and  is  certainly  a 
desirable  end,  in  a  world  of  limited  capacity,  in  which 
each  species  is  endowed  with  the  power  of  self-multipli- 
cation ;  and  indifference  to  happiness  on  the  part  of  the 
Creator  could  hardly  have  failed  to  manifest  itself  in  the 
preference  of  du-ectness  and  efficiency  to  mercy  in  the 
choice  of  death-producing  agencies,  in  which,  on  the 
other  hand,  a  careful  analysis  reveals  the  minimum  of 
sufferino;  consistent  with  the  end  to  be  attained.  So  is  it 
with  the  entu-e  range  of  natural  agencies  for  the  attain- 
ment of  ultimate  ends.  We  can  trace  in  no  one  of  them 
the  will,  or  (if  I  may  use  a  word  more  strictly  applicable 
to  man)  the  -willingness  to  produce  suffering.  There  is 
no  apparatus  in  nature  which  has  an  iimnediate  or  neces- 
sary tendency  to  mflict  pain  or  misery. 

On  the  other  hand,  enjoyment  or  happmess  is  the  ex- 
press and  undoubted  end  of  unnumbered  portions  of  the 
universe  and  its  administration.  In  the  senses,  the  affec- 
tions, and  the  mtellect,  man  has  many  endowments,  and 
performs  many  functions  in  no  wise  essential  to  the  pres- 
ervation or  transmission  of  life,  or  to  his  mental  or  moral 
culture,  and  wliich  have  no  possible  use  or  office  other 
than  the  production  of  happiness.  Indeed,  there  is  not  a 
physical,  mental,  or  moral  power  whose  normal  exercise 


THE  LOVE   OF   GOD.  97 

is  not  a  source  of  positive  pleasure  ;  and  tliis  could  not  be 
the  case  without  a  supremely  benevolent  design  on  the 
part  of  the  Deity.  The  external  world,  too,  is  full  of 
sights,  sounds,  flavors,  and  perfumes,  which  can  have  no 
end  other  than  animal  and  human  enjoyment.  Contriv- 
ances for  this  sole  purpose  crowd  upon  our  observation  as 
we  extend  it  to  the  lower  races  of  animals.  The  myriads 
of  organized  beings  that  float  on  the  summer  breeze, 
swarm  in  the  waters,  and  make  the  forest  glad,  —  the 
numberless  forms  of  microscopic  existence  that  fill  the 
veiy  chinks  and  crannies  of  creation  with  sentient  and 
rejoicing  life,  —  all  demonstrate  the  benignity  of  the 
Supreme  Being. 

The  progress  of  knowledge  and  of  science  has  been 
fruitful,  more  than  in  anything  else,  in  the  discovery  of 
beneficent  uses,  often  of  obviously  beneficent  design,  in 
departments  of  nature  that  had  been  regarded  as  detri- 
mental to  human  happiness,  —  m  fine,  m  the  transfer  of 
supposed  evils  to  the  catalogue  of  goods.  I  might  almost 
say  that  physical  science  has  done  nothing  else  than  this. 
It  has  hardly  made  a  discovery  which  has  not  been  a 
new  revelation  of  the  Divine  benevolence,  worthy  to  be 
hailed  with  a  raptui'ous  Te  Deum.  Thus  a  large  propor- 
tion of  the  most  effective  remedies  and  prophylactics  at 
the  command  of  the  physician  are  drawn  fi'om  the  list  of 
poisons.  The  gases,  which  unmixed  are  fatal  to  life,  in 
their  natural  combinations  are  salutary,  in  their  chemical 
offices  inestimably  precious.  The  very  fire-damp  which 
destroys  the  careless  miner  lights  our  cities.  The  electric 
force,  in  its  cumulative  power  fearfiil  and  fatal,  is  the 
vital  force  of  creation  ;  and  the  lightning,  which  leaves 
its  occasional  memento  in  the  scathed  tree,  the  shattered 
dwelling,   or   the  lifeless  human  form,   dispels  miasma, 

6  G 


98  CHRISTIANITY   THE   RELIGION   OF   NATURE. 

stimulates  growth,  and  sends  a  quicker,  healthier  life- 
pulse  on  the  track  of  the  thunder-cloud.  The  volcano 
is  but  the  safety-valve  of  subterranean  fires,  which  bear 
an  essential  part  in  the  economy  of  nature.  Celestial 
phenomena  once  of  dire  portent  are  now  recognized  as 
staccato  passages  in  the  harmony  of  the  spheres.  All 
natural  objects,  events,  and  processes  are  in  the  course 
of  verification  as  good  in  their  place  and  beautiful  in 
their  season ;  and  science  is  fast  encircling  the  earth 
and  spanning  the  heavens  with  the  apostolic  inscription, 
"  God  is  Love." 

In  further  illustration  of  the  Divine  goodness,  I  would 
solicit  your  attention  to  the  natural  theology  of  pain.  In 
the  brute  creation  there  is,  we  believe,  the  minimum  of 
pain  consistent  with  the  law  of  death  and  the  succession 
of  generations.  Animals  in  a  state  of  nature  suflPer  little 
from  disease,  probably  still  less  from  fear.  The  provision 
by  which  they  prey  upon  one  another,  considered  in  all 
its  bearings,  is  beautifully  beneficent.  Were  they  left  to 
perish  by  the  natural  decay  of  their  physical  organiza- 
tion, it  could  be  only  with  protracted  sufifering,  as  that 
very  decay  would  prevent  them  from  seeking  the  wont- 
ed means  of  subsistence.  But  the  condition,  whether  of 
age  or  of  accidental  disablement,  which  prevents  their 
supplying  their  own  needs,  renders  them  with  merciful 
promptness  a  prey  to  their  natural  enemies.  Moreover, 
so  far  as  we  know,  except  where  domestication  and  full 
feeding  make  an  animal  indifferent  to  the  uses  of  his 
victim,  death  by  beasts  of  prey  is  almost  instantaneous, 
and  the  life  which  up  to  that  moment  had  known  neither 
care,  apprehension,  nor  suffering,  goes  to  reinforce  an- 
other equally  painless  life. 

But  man  is  liable  to  intense  and  prolonged  suffering, 


THE   LOVE    OF   GOD.  99 

and  we  can  fully  vindicate  the  Divine  love  in  man's  con- 
dition upon  the  earth  only  by  recognizing  the  moral 
benefit  which  results  from  the  various  forms  of  painful 
endurance.  This,  however,  hardly  needs  a  labored  dem- 
onstration ;  for  none  are  so  ready  to  admit  the  benig- 
nant efficacy  of  suffering  as  those  who  have  been  them- 
selves the  greatest  sufferers,  and  among  those  who  bear 
all  the  marks  of  the  highest  spiritual  culture,  and  at  the 
same  time  of  the  fullest  measure  of  conscious  happiness, 
there  are  multitudes  to  whom  we  can  point,  not  in  pity, 
but  in  admiration,  and  anticipate  the  announcement  which 
the  Apostle  heard  in  his  vision  of  heaven,  "  These  are 
they  that  have  come  out  of  great  tribulation." 

Considered  with  reference  to  its  moral  and  spiritual 
ends,  pain  has  its  merciful  limitations.  Up  to  a  certain 
point  it  may  be  borne  with  cheerful  submission  and  with 
conscious  benefit  to  the  moral  nature.  When  it  tran- 
scends this  point,  one  of  three  things  takes  place.  Either 
death  ensues  ;  or  some  paralytic  or  gangrenous  affection 
intervenes,  which  separates  the  suffering  organ  or  mem- 
ber from  the  rest  of  the  body,  and  forbids  the  nerves  to 
transmit  their  report  to  the  brain  and  the  consciousness  ; 
or,  if  neither  of  these,  delirium  makes  the  soul  imperfectly 
conscious  of  what  the  body  endures,  or  even  wraps  it 
in  a  wild  elysium.  I  hardly  need  remind  you  in  what 
an  overwhelming  majority  of  instances  either  of  these 
alternatives  may  be  anticipated  and  prevented  by  ano- 
dynes and  anaesthetic  agents. 

There  is  also  a  limit  of  age.  The  in  tenser  forms  of 
physical  suffering  belong  for  the  mo^t  part  to  the  period 
of  active  moral  discipline,  when  pain  may  yield  its  full 
revenue  of  spiritual  benefit.  The  sufferings  of  infant 
children  are  doubtless  much  less  severe  than  they  seem. 


100  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

The   infant   brain  is   but  imperfectly  developed   in   its 
susceptibility  of  impression,   no  less  than  in  its  active 
power  ;   in  many  forms  of  disease  it  is  so  far  affected 
dh-ectly    or    by   sympathy   as   to   diminish   greatly   the 
amount  of  conscious  pain  that  would  otherwise  be  ex- 
perienced ;  and  we  all  know  how  the  capacity  of  enjoy- 
ment, and  even  of  absolute  mirthfulness,  will  betray  itself 
in  children  amidst  paroxysms  that  threaten  instant  dis- 
solution, and  when  already  under  the  shadow  of  death. 
Thus  the  morbid  liabilities  of  very  young  children  serve 
the  purpose  of  sustaining  parental  vigilance  and  mtdti- 
plying  those  tender  offices  by  which  the  ties  of  blood  and 
birth  are  made  doubly  strong  and  dear,  while  compara- 
tively httle    is    abstracted   from   the  joyousness    of  the 
irresponsible  years  of  opening  life.     In  old  age  we  may 
mark  a  similar  limitation.     There  is  a  period  of  decline, 
when,  though  the  character   still   grows   from   its   own 
resources,  active  moral  discipline  ceases,  and  the  aged 
person   seems  to  be   merely  awaiting  the   summons   to 
a  sphere  of  duty  in  which  the  worn-out  body  will  be  no 
longer  needed.     This  period  is   seldom  hable   to  acute 
disease  or  intense  suffering.     The  nerves  and  the  brain 
have  lost  much  of  their  sensitiveness.     There  is  often 
languor  or  weariness,  but  seldom  continuous  or  severe 
bodily  anguish.     The  gentle  steps  by  which  one  is  led 
through  declining  years  are  almost  always  the  subject  of 
grateful  observation,  except  where  vice  has  thwarted  the 
kindly  purpose  of  nature,  and  planted  thorns  of  its  own 
in  the  pillow  of  the  hoary  head. 

Apart  from  its  moral  uses,  pain  serves  important  phys- 
ical purposes.  It  is  the  sentinel  against  bodily  injury. 
It  is  the  guardian  of  temperance,  purity,  and  hygienic 
regimen.     It  is  the  prime  executive  as  to  those  natural 


THE  LOVE   OF   GOD.  101 

laws  which  we  are  bound  to  obey,  and  which  ought  not 
to  be  violated  with  impunity.  And  in  this  office  of  pain, 
also,  we  may  trace  limitations  that  indicate  the  Divine 
goodness.  Thus  the  pain  of  hunger  recurs  in  its  mildest 
form  just  often  enough  to  induce  the  regular  supply 
of  our  wants  that  is  essential  to  health  and  vigor.  It 
reaches  its  acme  of  agony  at  the  very  point  at  which  the 
supply  can  no  longer  be  delayed  without  serious  injmy 
and  peril.  If  the  supply  be  of  necessity  postponed,  the 
pain,  having  served  its  purpose  of  warning,  dies  away, 
and  lethargy  ensues.  The  same  is  true  of  suiBPering  from 
extreme  cold.  Intense  pain  warns  the  exposed  person 
to  seek  shelter,  with  a  call  loud  enough  and  lono;  enouo;h 
in  most  cases  to  effect  its  object  without  detriment  to  life 
or  limb.  But  when  the  injury  has  taken  place,  when  the 
limb  is  frozen,  the  sentinel,  no  longer  needed,  quits  his 
post,  unconsciousness  of  suffering  ensues,  and  even  sen- 
sations of  ease  and  comfort  may  precede  the  fatal  issue 
of  the  exposure.  To  the  same  category  belongs  the  well- 
known  fact,  that  the  nerves  susceptible  of  the  most  pain- 
ful sensations  lie  in  precisely  those  parts  of  the  body 
which  we  can  protect  or  heal,  and  which  would  be  per- 
petually exposed  to  maiming  or  injury,  did  not  their  Ha- 
bility  to  pain  make  us  careful  of  their  safe-keeping  and 
well-being.  The  seat  of  the  severest  suffering  is  in 
almost  all  cases  near  the  surface.  The  first  touch  of  the 
sui'geon's  knife  inflicts  much  greater  pain  than  the  deep 
incision,  the  laceration  of  the  flesh  than  the  division  of 
the  bone,  the  wounding  or  fracture  of  the  arm  or  leg 
than  the  lesion  of  those  vital  organs  which  are  subject  to 
more  occult  laws,  and  can  with  less  certainty  be  guarded 
from  injury  or  restored  from  disease.  In  fine,  pain,  with 
few  and  sporadic  exceptions,  is  most  intense  where  the 


102  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION  OF  NATURE. 

means  of  prevention  or  recovery  are  generally  known 
or  easily  attainable. 

Now  suppose  a  painless  world.     Imagine  our  children 
growing  up  without  liability  to  suffering  or  its  semblance, 
and  our  friends,  our  parents,  those  bowed  with  years, 
those  who  claim  our  devoted  offices  of  love  and  rever- 
ence, subject  to  the  death-producing  agencies  which  must 
none  the  less  exist  and  work,  yet  unwarned  by  admoni- 
tory sensations  of  pain.     This  state  of  things  could  hardly 
fail  to  induce  neglect.     The  most  intimate  offices  of  pa- 
rental and  filial  love  would  be  superseded,  and  in  the 
same  proportion  the  affections  would  be  deadened  and 
their  joy  obliterated.     Our  homes  would  lose  their  en- 
dearaients,  their  sympathies,  their  most  grateful  remem- 
brances.    There  would  be  coldness  where  there  is  now 
the  tenderest  love,  and  severed  existence  where  there  is 
now  the  closest  union.     Imagine,  too,  the  active  portion 
of  mankind  no  longer  liable  to  suffijring.     What  reckless 
exposures  would  there  be,  what  unconscious  neglect  of 
physical  laws,  what  suicidal  feats  of  strength  and  endur- 
ance!     The  maimed  would  outnumber  the  uninjured, 
and  the  needless,  foolhardy  deaths  would  be  more  than 
those  that  now  occur  by  disease  and  casualty  combined. 
These  considerations  certainly  deprive  human  suffering 
of  its  mystery,  and  bring  forth  rich  testimony  from  the 
severest   experiences    of   oui^   earthly   condition    to  the 
goodness  of  the  Creator. 

I  have  spoken  thus  far  of  physical  suffering  only.  In 
verifying  the  Christian  view  of  the  Divine  character,  we 
encounter  not  only  the  pain  that  befalls  men  in  the  ordi- 
nary course  of  nature,  but  also  moral  evil,  and  the  misery 
that  flows  from  it.  Here  we  must  remember  at  the  out- 
set, that  m  the  natui'e  of  things  wrong-doino-  cannot  be 


THE  LOVE   OF   GOD.  103 

harmless.  Right  and  wrong  are  not  arbitrary,  but  essen- 
tial characteristics.  The  wrong  is  in  its  very  essence 
unfit  to  be  done,  and,  if  the  right  has  beneficent  results, 
it  is  impossible  that  its  opposite  should  not  have  opposite 
results.  Omnipotence  can  no  more  deprive  the  wrong 
of  its  power  of  harming,  than  it  can  make  two  and 
two  five. 

In  the  next  place,  fi-ee  agents  must  needs  have  the 
power  of  doing  wrong,  in  order  that  they  may  have  the 
power  of  doing  right ;  and  if  they  have  the  power  of 
doing  wrong,  it  is  impossible  that  they  should  not  exer- 
cise it,  at  least  in  the  earher  stages  of  their  history,  and 
until  the  entire  range  of  moral  experiments  has  been 
exhausted.  The  only  question  then  is,  whether  this  per- 
ilous gift  of  fi^-ee-agency  is  consistent  with  the  Divine 
benevolence.  In  answering  this,  we  must  suppose  that 
the  plan  of  the  Creator  would  embrace  every  kind  and 
degree  of  happiness  of  which  finite  beings  are  suscepti- 
ble. Now  does  not  our  consciousness  assure  us  that  free- 
agency  rightly  exercised  is  the  source  of  immeasurably 
higher  happiness  than  can  flow  from  all  other  sources 
combined  ?  With  what  shall  we  compare  it  ?  With 
intelligence  ?  Intelligence  brings  labor,  care,  and  pain, 
and  of  itself  bestows  no  counterbalancing  joy.  What 
we  call  the  pleasures  of  knowledge  or  of  the  intellect 
derive  their  zest  from  the  moral  nature.  Emotions  and 
affections  that  have  their  source  in  a  loyal  and  obedient 
will  alone  enable  us  to  assimilate  the  materials  of  knowl- 
edge, and  to  make  them  conducive  to  our  nutriment  and 
growth,  our  elasticity  and  gladness  of  spirit.  Without 
this  moral  solvent,  the  acquisitions  of  the  intellect  are 
but  burdensome  and  oppressive  crudities,  ministeriug  to 
our  isolation,  misanthropy,  and  restlessness.     But  if  such 


104  CHRISTIANITY   THE  EELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

be  the  case,  it  was  the  part  of  Divme  love  to  provide 
for  the  highest  form  of  happiness,  that  flowing  from 
moral  goodness,  even  though  it  were  foreseen  that  count- 
less multitudes  would  spurn  the  noble  gift.  And  if  moral 
excellence  be  the  supreme  good,  then  is  there  no  more 
merciful  portion  of  the  Divine  administration  than  the 
wretchedness  that  results  from  human  guilt.  The  issue 
of  sin  in  misery  is  the  surest  way  of  awakening  repent- 
ance and  producing  reformation.  Sin  never  looks  so 
appalling  and  offensive  as  when  it  is  mirrored  back  from 
its  consequences  to  the  sinner's  own  consciousness.  By 
the  desolation  and  misery  into  which  men  plunge  them- 
selves and  others,  they  are  made  to  abhor  themselves, 
and  to  cherish  purer  affections  and  better  purposes; 
while  by  the  same  exhibition  the  innocent  are  kept 
innocent,  the  tempted  held  back  from  evil,  the  virtuous 
confirmed  in  their  good  principles  and  habits,  and  the 
philanthropic  urged  to  more  vigorous  efforts  for  the 
restoration  of  the  fallen  and  the  well-being  of  their 
race. 

I  have  thus  far  spoken  of  the  goodness  of  God  as 
manifested  in  the  general  administration  of  the  universe. 
Christianity  goes  further  than  this,  and  affirms  his  provi- 
dence in  all  events,  his  paternal  providence  over  every 
member  of  his  human  faiiiily.  The  Divine  Providence 
has  for  its  rational  grounds  the  native  inertness  of  matter, 
and  the  necessary  omnipresence  of  the  Deity. 

Inertness  —  that  is,  the  tendency  to  remain  in  its  pres- 
ent state,  whatever  that  be  —  enters  into  our  conception 
of  matter.  As  I  said  in  a  former  Lecture,  philosophy 
has  abandoned  the  search  after  efficient  material  forces. 
Mind,  will,  is  recognized  as  the  ultimate  cause  of  all 
motions,  changes,  phenomena,  events.    The  laws  of  na- 


THE   LOVE   OF    GOD.  105 

ture  (so  called)  resolve  themselves  into  wonted  methods 
of  the  Divme  administration.  If  we  deny  this,  our  only 
alternative  hypothesis  is  the  pantheistic  conception  of 
an  inherent  force,  an  immanent  and  active  will,  a  self 
determining  power,  in  matter.  But  when  we  provision 
ally  adopt  this  hypothesis,  we  find  it  impossible  to  con- 
ceive of  the  initial  impulse,  of  the  beginning  to  be,  of 
the  self-existence  or  self-creation  of  matter  ;  and  we  are 
thus  thrown  back  upon  the  belief  in  a  creative  will  dis- 
tinct from  the  material  universe,  which  will,  as  it  was 
the  sole  cause  of  the  beginning  to  be,  must  equally  be 
the  sole  cause  of  the  ever-varying  phenomena  of  con- 
tinued being,  of  the  ceaseless  change  of  material  objects, 
inert  in  themselves,  which  could  no  more  alter  their 
mode  of  being  than  they  could  begin  to  be  without  a 
Supreme  Will. 

Again,  the  omnipresence  of  God  is  involved  in  the 
very  idea  of  his  existence.  But  can  his  be  an  inert 
presence  ?  Where  he  is  in  the  plenitude  of  his  al- 
mightiness,  can  aught  take  place  otherwise  than  by  his 
will? 

There  is  no  room  for  the  old  distinction  between  a 
general  and  a  particular  providence.  The  former  can- 
not be  without  the  latter.  We  can  make  no  discrim- 
ination between  the  greater  and  the  less,  which  does  not 
betray  the  shallowness  of  our  speculations,  and  condct 
us  of  the  folly  of  meting  the  universe  with  our  own  pal- 
try measuring- tape,  and  sounding  infinity  with  our  own 
brief  line.  Do  we  say  that  God  governs  vast  events, 
and  exercises  no  direct  supervision  over  the  smaller  con- 
cerns and  interests  of  his  children  ?  What  affairs  even 
of  nations,  worlds,  systems,  are  vast  to  him  whose  stars 
crowd  by  myriads  the  field  of  telescopic  vision,  and  pave 


106  CHRISTIANITY   THE   RELIGION   OF   NATURE. 

the  highway  of  the  heavens  as  countless  as  the  sands  on 
the  sea-shore  ?  And,  on  the  other  hand,  what  concerns 
of  sentient,  reasoning  man  are  not  vast,  compared  with 
the  structure  and  functions  of  those  curiously  and  won- 
derfully formed  beings,  bearing  every  token  of  the  Di- 
vine handwork,  to  which  a  drop  of  water  or  a  fig-seed 
is  as  a  universe  ?  Embosomed  as  we  are  between  twin 
infinities,  between  the  immeasurably  immense  and  the 
in/conceivably  minute,  we  dare  not  set  metes  and  bounds 
to  the  universal  Providence. 

"  To  him  no  high,  no  low,  no  great,  no  small. 
He  fills,  He  bounds,  connects,  and  equals  all." 

A  paternal  providence  is  claimed  by  many  as  a  truth 
of  experience.  The  privileged  and  happy,  if  at  the  same 
time  devout,  see  more  than  a  beneficent  order  of  nature 
and  flow  of  events  in  their  own  conditions  and  lives,  and 
think  that  they  can  recognize  the  Divine  care  and  love 
for  themselves  individually.  The  favorite  utterance  of 
piety  is,  "  How  precious  also  are  thy.  thoughts  unto  me! 
How  great  is  the  sum  of  them  !  If  I  should  count 
them,  they  are  more  in  number  than  the  sand."  There 
are  in  every  happy  life  numerous  instances  in  which  the 
course  of  events  might  seem  to  have  received  a  special 
direction  for  the  benefit  of  the  individual.  Large  por- 
tions of  our  lives  —  crises,  it  may  be,  on  which  our  whole 
earthly  destiny  depended  —  have  been  shaped  without  any 
planning  or  foresight  by  ourselves  or  others,  —  by  what 
the  world  terms  chance,  —  by  circumstances  in  themselves 
trivial,  —  by  our  coming,  as  it  seemed  fortuitously,  into 
relation  with  certain  persons  or  objects  rather  than  with 
others,  or  at  one  moment  rather  than  at  another.  An 
interview  called  casual,  a  delay  or  hinderance  regarded 
as  accidental,  an  act  so  slight  and  so  utterly  indifferent  in 


THE  LOVE   OF   GOD.  107 

any  aspect  visible  at  the  time  of  action  that  there  seemed 
a  hmidred  chances  against  one  that  it  would  not  be  per- 
formed, has  often  determined  all  the  essential  events  of 
a  lifetime.  A  conjuncture  of  circumstances  in  itself 
trivial,  and  which  a  day  or  two,  perhaps  a  few  minutes, 
earlier  or  later  would  have  had  no  traceable  conse- 
quences, is  often  the  critical  moment  of  one's  fortune, 
the  first  of  a  series  of  causes  from  which  his  whole  sub- 
sequent happiness  flows.  It  is  contended  that  in  these 
cases,  in  the  absence  or  feebleness  of  proximate  causes, 
there  is  a  distinct  revelation  of  the  paternal  providence 
of  God. 

But  in  dwelling  on  the  happy  experiences  thus  traced 
to  the  love  of  our  Father,  we  must  not  forget  that  the 
statement  we  have  made  applies  equally  to  adverse  crises, 
prolonged  series  of  misfortunes,  ruined  hopes,  thwarted 
plans.  The  slight  initial  causes  in  whose  train  flow  the 
most  momentous  consequences,  for  evil  no  less  than  for 
good,  to  men,  communities,  and  nations,  form  one  of  the 
most  curious  chapters  in  human  history.  A  strikino- 
instance  occurs  to  me.  In  the  Twelfth  Congress,  which 
declared  the  war  of  1812  between  this  country  and 
Great  Britain,  a  new  Senator  of  the  United  States,  who 
voted  for  the  war  and  voted  with  the  war-party  on  all 
preliminary  questions,  was  chosen  by  a  legislative  major- 
ity of  one.  A  member  in  the  majority  of  the  legislature 
that  elected  him  was  chosen  by  a  majority  of  one.  That 
majority* was  given  him  by  a  man  who  had  never  before 
voted  with  the  party  that  favored  the  war,  but  was 
induced  to  do  so  in  this  instance  simply  because  the 
cattle  of  the  opposing  candidate  had  trespassed  on  his 
corn-field.  Had  the  opposing  candidate  for  the  National 
Senate  been  chosen,  the  war  would  probably  not  have 


108  CHRISTIANITY   THE   RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

taken  place.^  That  trespass,  then,  may  be  said  to  have 
caused  the  war.  Now  while  I  have  the  profoundest 
faith  in  a  benignant  providence  always  and  everywhere, 
a  providence  that  often  reveals  itself  in  the  fee- 
bleness or  the  fortuitous  aspect  of  proximate  causes,  — 
I  cannot  but  regard  it  as  a  providence  that  ordains  not 
only  the  blessings  which  we  deske  and  rejoice  in,  but 
the  sorrows  that  may  nourish  our  higher  natures,  and 
the  retributive  visitations  which  men  or  nations  may  both 
merit  and  need. 

But  while  God  wounds  only  in  love,  and  punishes  that 
he  may  restore,  our  language  bears  one  testimony  of  very 
great  and  incontrovertible  force  to  the  preponderance  of 
the  joy-giving  element  in  the  Divine  Providence.     It  is  * 
implied  and  employed  in  the  use  of  the  word  happiness,  — 
at  once  an  atrociously  irreligious  and  a  profoundly  relig- 
ious word.     It  means  that  which  happens  or  chances, 
thus  excluding  in  its  form  the  agency  of  an  overruling 
Providence.    Yet  in  the  application  of  this  ungodly  word 
to  felicitous  events  alone,  we  bear  tacit  testimony  to  a 
benignant  order  in  human  affairs  ;  —  we  confess  that,  if 
we  are  the  subjects  of  chance,  it  is  of  a  chance  that  plays 
with  loaded  dice  ;  that  is,  we  deny  the  sovereignty  of 
chance  in  the  very  act  of  admitting  it,  and  affirm  that 
of  Providence  in  the  very  act  of  denying  it ;  for,  were 
events  fortuitous,  the  happenings  to  us  would  be  as  often 
afflictive  as  they  were  glad,  and  happiness  would  never 
have  been  chosen  to  designate  joy.     While  it  might  not 
be  safe  to  reason  from  individual  experiences,  the  vast 

1  The  final  vote  in  the  Senate  for  the  declaration  of  war  was  19  against  13; 
Dut  had  the  anti-war  party  commanded  only  one  additional  vote,  the  declara- 
tion would  have  been  postponed,  and  in  a  very  few  days  the  news  of  the 
repeal  of  the  Orders  in  Council  would  have  rendered  the  war  impossible,  by 
removing  its  principal  grounds  and  pretexts. 


THE  LOVE   OF   GOD.  109 

preponderance  of  pleasurable  sensations  over  the  con- 
trary, —  the  system  under  which  happiness  is  the  rule, 
misery  the  exception,  —  is  a  clear  and  full  demonstration 
of  a  fatherly  providence,  which  wills  and  promotes  the 
enjoyment  and  well-being  of  its  subjects. 

There  is  also  an  inward  experience  which  cannot  mis- 
lead us,  —  a  spiritual  providence  by  which  we  are  pre- 
pared for  such  events  as  God  may  send,  strengthened  for 
our  burdens,  sustained  under  our  trials,  by  resources  of 
which  we  were  unconscious  till  the  stress  of  need,  and  in 
which  we  rejoice  to  trace  the  direct  action  of  a  Father, 
who  loves  us  more  than  we  can  love  ourselves,  upon  our 
minds  and  hearts.  These  experiences  are  often  clear  and 
emphatic  ;  they  multiply  upon  our  recognition  in  propor- 
tion to  the  constancy  and  thoroughness  of  our  introspec- 
tion; and  they  leave  in  the  most  reflective  and  devout 
spirits  an  assurance  too  profound  for  doubt,  that  God  is 
with  us  in  his  fatherly  providence  where  we  most  need 
his  inspiration  and  support,  in  the  region  of  our  sensibili- 
ties and  aifections. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  argument  from  experience. 
There  is  in  the  aggregate  of  human  experience  a  coun- 
ter-argument which  we  are  bound  to  meet  fully  and 
fairly.  I  refer  to  the  case  of  the  multitudes,  the  myriads 
of  the  utterly  unprivileged,  —  of  those  who  have"  their 
foil  share  of  calamity  and  sorrow  without  access  to  the 
faith  which  might  enable  them  to  sustain  their  trials 
patiently  and  hopefully,  and  to  transmute  them  into  nour- 
ishment for  the  moral  nature.  It  cannot  be  denied  that, 
for  unnumbered  millions,  if  this  life  \\*ere  tlieir  only 
being,  or  if  they  were  destined  to  suffer  hereafter  for 
lack  of  what  they  had  no  means  of  doing  or  becoming 
here,  it  had  been  better  that  they  had  not  been  bornt 


110  CHRISTIANITY   THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

But  if  the  earthly  Hfe  be  for  them  a  brief  embryo-state 
from  which  they  emerge  into  a  realm  of  light,  priv- 
ilege, and  joy,  it  is  easy  to  conceive  that   their  pres- 
ent condition  subserves  essential  purposes  of  the  Divine 
Providence,  which  we  may  not  now  fully  understand. 
Let  me  borrow  an  illustration  from  the  physical  history 
of  our  planet.     There  were,  long   before    man    or   the 
higher  animals  had  birth,  geological  ages  during  which 
raSk,  luxuriant  vegetation  overspread  large  portions  of 
the  world.     Forests  rose  in  beautiful  verdure,  ferns  and 
grasses  clothed  the  plains,  though  there  were  none  to 
enjoy  the  shade  or  to  feed  upon  the  harvest ;  and  genera- 
tions of  these  forests,  unnumbered  growths  of  this  profuse 
vegetation,  were  swept  by  volcanic  fires,  and  piled  heap 
upon  heap  in  massive  strata.     Had  one  of  the  elder  sons 
of  God,  not  endowed  with  foresight,  beheld  this  process, 
he  might  have  questioned  the  Divine  wisdom,  and  asked, 
''  To  Avhat  purpose  is  this  waste  of  what  might  feed  and 
shelter  living,  reasoning,  enjoying  races?"     But  these 
layers    of    charred    forests    are    what    now    sustain    our 
fires,   and  feed  our  forges,  and   propel  our  ships,   and 
promise  supphes  for  human  art  and  comfort  for  myriads 
of  years  to  come  ;  and   all   generations   will  bless   the 
Omniscient  Wisdom  whose  seeming  waste  is  their  un- 
exhausted wealth  and  strength.     Spiritual  geology,  too, 
may  have  its  ages  whose  meaning  is  to  be  studied  only 
in  the  remote  future.     This  seeming  loss  and  waste  of 
souls  on  earth,  redeemed  no  doubt  in  heaven,  may  have 
its  end  in  the  sure  development  and  ultimate  supremacy 
of  goodness  through  the  whole  universe  of  God.     It  may 
be  essential  to  the  education  of  our  race,  that  the  history 
of  every  form  of  evil  should  be  written  out  in  gigantic 
characters ;  and  the  vicious  experience  of  earlier  ages 


THE   LOVE    OF    GOD.  Ill 

may  have  its  ultimate  result  in  ages  that  shall  roll  on  in 
undimmed  holiness  and  blessedness.  He  who  lays  the 
beams  of  his  chambers  in  the  waters,  while  their  topstone 
is  above  the  heavens,  may  be  laying  the  sunken  foun- 
dations of  that  kingdom  of  universal  righteousness,  in 
which  not  futui'e  generations  alone,  but  those  too  whose 
earthly  destiny  was  beneath  the  floods  of  ignorance  and 
depravity,  shall  have  their  eternal  dwelling-place. 

I  grant  that,  if  this  life  be  regarded  as  a  period  of 
probation  and  the  only  period  for  all  men,  as  it  is  a  pro- 
bationary state  and  may  be  the  only  one  for  the  fully 
privileged,  the  condition  of  the  unprivileged  would  be 
irreconcilable  with  the  Divine  love.  But,  so  far  as  these 
last  are  concerned,  is  it  not  reasonable  to  suppose  this 
world  simply  a  birthplace  and  conservatory  of  spirits  that 
are  to  be  trained  and  nurtured  elsewhere  ?  Go  into  a 
plantation  of  fruit-trees  in  which  orchard  and  nursery  are 
combined.  You  will  there  find  some  trees  that  have 
soil-room  and  sky-room  enough  to  reach  a  normal  growth, 
and  to  perform  their  function  as  fruit-bearers,  that  is,  to 
fulfil  their  destiny ;  and  those  trees  are  in  a  probationary 
state.  Their  worth  will  be  tested  by  the  quality  and 
quantity  of  their  fruit.  If  then'  fruit  be  poor  or  scanty, 
after  suitable  efforts  to  improve  it,  they  will  be  cut  down, 
and  others  will  take  their  places.  If  their  fruit  be  rich 
and  abundant,  they  will  be  cherished  with  the  utmost 
diligence.  But  a  large  part  of  these  trees  are  to  have 
their  probation  elsewhere,  it  may  be  in  richer  soil  and 
under  more  skilful  culture.  The  only  aim  now  is  to 
make  them  live,  to  give  them  shape  as  existences  of  their 
own  order,  to  establish  their  relations  with  soil  and  sky  ; 
and  when  they  are  fairly  made  alive  and  capable  of 
prolonged   existence,   they  will   be   transplanted  to  the 


112  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

respective  sites  where  their  fruit-bearing  capacity  can  be 
developed  and  tested. 

Now  the  thronging  ranks  of  the  unprivileged  can  be 
compared  only  to  these  closely  crowded  trees  planted  on 
purpose  to  be  transplanted.  They  do  not  get  their  moral 
training  here.  They  do  not  fairly  make  their  election 
between  good  and  evil.  They  know  so  little  of  moral 
distinctions,  that  the  wrong  which  they  seem  to  choose  is 
in  no  sense  the  choice  of  the  soul,  and  may  not  unfitly 
be  regarded  as  a  mere  habitude  of  the  body.  What  they 
do  get  here  is  life,  —  the  capacity  of  an  endless  life. 
They  come  into  those  relations  with  time  and  space 
which  are  essential  to  the  detached,  personal  existence 
of  a  finite  spirit.  They  are  placed,  also,  in  certain  de- 
terminate relations  w^ith  fellow-spirits,  which  may  through 
all  eternity  render  their  social  condition  immeasurably 
happier  than  it  could  have  been  had  they  been  isolated 
existences,  each  brought  into  being  by  a  separate  act  of 
omnipotence.  They  are  made  each  to  have  some  expe- 
rience of  the  straitnesses,  infirmities,  and  sufferings  of 
this  mortal  state,  and  none  can  say  how  essential  a  part 
this  experience  may  bear,  as  a  source  of  gratitude  when 
God  shall  have  "  enlarged  their  borders,"  as  a  term  of 
comparison  by  which  they  may  know  how  highly  they 
are  blessed,  as  a  starting-point  to  which  they  may  meas- 
ure back  the  path  on  which  the  Divine  love  shall  lead 
them. 

At  the  same  time,  under  precisely  this  system,  while 
to  many  individuals  existence  and  the  capacity  of  being 
advantageously  transplanted  are  God's  chief  and  best 
gifts,  a  process  of  education  for  the  race  is  developing 
itself  along  the  ages,  —  a  process  by  which  undoubtedly 
the  maximum  of  active  goodness,  the  most  vigorous  and 


THE   LOVE   OF   GOD.  113 

salutary  exercise    of  moral   freedom,   may   be   insured. 
Had  equal  privilege  been  at  the  outset  ordained  for  all, 
and  preserved  by  the  interposition  of  Providence  from 
age  to  age,  human  society  would  present  only  a  dead 
level  of  tame  and  passive  goodness,  with  hardly  vitality 
enough  to  merit  the  noble,  manly  designation  of  virtue. 
There  would  be  no  room  for  the  loftier  and  more  heroic 
forms  of  excellence.      The  greatest  names  on  the  annals 
of  moral  attainment  and  achievement  would  never  have 
been   written.     Nay,  there   would  have  been  no  place 
for  the  "name  which  is  above  every  name,"  and  for  the 
tender  reverence,  profound  gratitude,  and  warm  affec- 
tion which,  clustering  around  it  and  rising  from  it  with 
enhanced  fervor  to  Him  who  so  loved  the  world  that  he 
sent  his  Son,  form  the  richest  portion  of  man's  spiritual 
experience.     And  when  the  world  shall   have  been  all 
reclaimed,  when  the  nursery  shall  all  be  fruitful  orchard- 
ground,  there  will  have  been  created  in  the  veins  of  hu- 
manity, to  be  transmitted  to  sinless  generations,  and  to 
be  translated  to  its  ultimate  higher  sphere  of  being,  a 
vastly  nobler,  hardier,  more  energetic  type  of  moral  and 
spiritual  character  than  could  have  come  into  existence, 
had  the  plan  of  Providence  been  that  of  equal  privileo-e 
for  all  and  always. 

I  have  thus  shown  you  that  the  seeming  exceptions 
to  a  benign  Providence  are  not  really  objections,  when 
viewed  in  connection  with  the  intensely  strong  positive 
arguments  that  may  be  urged  in  its  behalf 

This  subject  furnishes  an  impressive  illustration  of  the 
office  of  revelation  as  regards  the  truths  of  natural  re- 
ligion. In  the  observed  course  of  human  experience 
there  are  contrasted  facts  that  seem  at  first  siglit  as 
utterly  irreconcilable  as  if  they  flowed  from  the  rival 


114  CHRISTIANITY   THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

working  of  a  benevolent  and  a  malevolent  Deity.  There 
is,  on  tlie  one  hand,  mercy,  blessing,  privilege  ;  on  the 
other,  the  seeming  absence  of  all  these.  Nature,  unen- 
lightened by  revelation,  refuses  to  embrace  these  facts  in 
one  comprehensive  generalization.  Their  harmony  eludes 
her  search.  Revelation  utters  the  word  Providence, 
around  which  they  all  crystallize,  and  opens  the  immortal 
life  which  proffers  scope  for  their  development  in  a  co- 
herent system  initiated  and  crowned  by  the  infinite  love 
of  God.  The  truth.  Providence^  belongs  to  natural  re- 
ligion ;  revelation  furnishes  the  clew  which  leads  us 
through  its  labyrinth,  lets  down  from  heaven  the  hand 
that  unseals  its  mysteries,  utters  the  voice  that  interprets 
its  harmonies  of  love  and  praise. 


LECTURE    VI. 

THE  PEOVIDENCE   OF   GOD  IN  HUMAN  AET. 

My  last  Lecture  was  on  the  Divine  Goodness,  and 
especially  on  tlie  Providence  of  God  considered  as  a 
doctrine  of  human  experience,  that  is,  of  natural  re- 
ligion, and  on  the  objections  urged  against  it  on  the 
ground  of  the  unequal  distribution  of  privileges  in  this 
world.  The  Scriptures  aifirm  the  providence  of  God  in  a 
more  general  sense,  his  providence  —  forethought,  deter- 
mined provision  —  in  the  powers  and  faculties  of  man  as 
adapted  to  this  world  and  his  place  in  it ;  and  it  is  to  a 
single  branch  of  this  wide  theme  that  I  ask  your  atten- 
tion in  the  present  Lecture. 

Man  is  proud  of  art  and  skill  more  than  of  all  tilings 
else.  Virtue  and  piety  are,  indeed,  greater  and  nobler, 
but  they  make  men  humble,  not  proud ;  and  even  they 
are  indebted  to  the  arts  of  civiHzed  life  for  the  basis  of  in- 
telligence, knowledge,  culture,  and  refinement,  on  which 
alone  they  can  be  built  up  in  their  full  strength  and 
beauty,  and  by  means  of  which  alone  they  can  have  their 
due  manifestation  and  influence.  But  what  man  has 
done  for  himself  and  for  his  earthly  home,  —  the  wastes 
he  has  reclaimed ;  the  cities  he  has  built ;  the  grandeur 
and  beauty  he  has  embodied  in  architecture,  enshrined  in 
marble,  portrayed  on  canvas  ;  the  enslaving  to  his  uses  of 
the  giant  and  wayward  forces  of  natiu'e  ;  the  overcoming 
of  obstacles  that  once  seemed  insurmountable  ;  the  sover- 


116  CHRISTIANITY  THE   RELIGION   OF   NATURE. 

eign  command  which  he  exercises  in  the  entire  realm  of 
material  forces  and  agencies,  —  these  are  the  burden  of 
his  unceasing  self-praise ;  and  especially  we  are  nevei 
weary  of  admiring  the  vast  mechanical  and  artistical  pro- 
gress of  the  last  and  the  present  generation.  Meanwhile, 
the  perpetual  voice  of  the  Bible  is  :  "  All  power  belong- 
eth  unto  God."  I  have  taken  for  my  subject  this  evening 
the  Natural  Theology  of  Art,  and  my  aim  will  be  to  show 
that  human  art  is  but  a  manifestation  of  the  Divine 
Providence  ;  that  God  is,  as  the  Scriptures  represent 
him,  the  sole  contriver,  artificer,  builder,  —  the  author  of 
all  the  vast,  graceful,  curious,  and  comj^licated  forms  that 
grow  under  the  hands  of  man  ;  and  that  the  achievements 
of  our  race  are  equally  with  the  sun  in  his  glory,  and  the 
stars  on  their  circuits,  and  the  changing  seasons,  "  but 
the  varied  God." 

Let  me  first  remind  you  that  in  art  man  does  nothing 
except  what  God  either  does  or  provides  for  in  nature. 
He  only  follows  out  indications  that  are  a  divine  directory 
for  his  procedure.  He  creates  nothing  ;  he  only  finds 
and  uses  what  God  has  made.  He  does  not  confer  prop- 
erties ;  he  only  discovers  and  applies  them.  We  talk  of 
raw  material ;  but  there  is  none.  If  there  were,  it  would 
forever  remain  so.  What  we  call  by  that  name  has  in 
it  all  that  is  ever  made  out  of  it.  Our  paving  and  build- 
ing stones  lie,  in  the  quarry,  in  parallel  strata,  and  with 
crystals  so  grouped  and  separated  as  to  invite  the  very 
cleavage  they  receive  ;  and  the  blocks  in  which  they 
are  laid  or  heaved  correspond  in  their  surfaces  with  the 
natural  divisions  of  the  mother  rock.  The  veins  and 
fibres  of  our  forest-trees  guide,  rather  than  yield  to,  the 
axe,  the  lathe,  and  the  plane  ;  and  they  might  have  been 
of  essentially  the  same  substance,  and  yet  so  gnarled  and 


THE  PROVIDENCE   OF   GOD   IN  HUMAN  ART.  117 

knotted  as  to  defy  the  accumulated  science  of  centuries. 
Our  silk  we  could  not  wind  or  use,  had  it  not  been  first 
reeled  on  the  cocoon  with  a  delicacy  far  surpassing  our 
finest  handwork.  We  make  no  dyes,  hut  dip  our  rai- 
ment in  brilliant  and  enduring  hues,  beautiful  as  the 
rainbow  or  the  sunset  clouds,  which  God  has  treasured 
for  us  in  barks  and  roots  and  insects.  The  telegraph  is 
no  work  of  ours,  nor  yet  an  invention  of  our  time.  The 
agent  which  it  employs  has  been  from  creation's  dawn 
the  medium  of  all  communication  between  mind  aiid 
matter,  brain  and  muscle,  brain  and  brain  ;  and  in  the 
phenomena  of  mesmerism  and  pseudo-spiritualism  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  alono-  air-lines  and  for  indefinite 
distances  thoughts  and  woi'ds  are  sent  with  the  same 
unerring  accuracy  that  marks  their  transmission  on  the 
artificial  lightning-path.  We  have  only  arrested  for  a 
specific  purpose  a  force  which  throbs  from  zone  to  zone, 
leaps  from  sky  to  earth,  darts  from  earth  to  ocean, 
courses  in  the  sap  of  the  growing  tree,  runs  along  the 
nervous  tissue  of  the  living  man,  and  can  be  commanded 
for  the  speaking  wires  simply  because  it  is  and  works 
eveiy  where. 

Permit  me  to  carry  out  this  view  somewhat  in  detail 
with  reference  to  water,  the  most  essential  of  all  mechan- 
ical agents,  with  which  art  does  literally  nothing  of 
which  God  has  not  given  the  model  or  the  hint. 

How  numerous  beyond  all  computation  "are  the  artis- 
tical  contrivances  of  which  water  is  the  means  or  the 
object !  Not  only  is  it  the  destined  home  of  the  ship, 
—  that  noblest  masterwork  of  human  genius,  that  most 
expressive  type  of  man  as  the  conqueror  and  lord  of  na- 
ture, —  but  without  water  how  utterly  impossible  would 
it  be  to  bring  together  materials  for  the  ship,  or  for  any 


118  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

other  costly  and  complex  structure  !  Without  its  diffii- 
sion  in  quantities  and  qualities  adequate  not  only  to  sus- 
tain life,  but  to  supply  the  thousand-fold  greater  demands 
of  art,  where  were  the  triumphs  of  that  monarch  of  our 
century,  the  steam-king  ?  Now  mark  how  perfect,  as 
regards  human  industry,  is  the  Divine  distribution  of 
water,  —  gathered  into  oceans  for  the  world's  highway, 
—  indenting  the  shore  in  bays  and  creeks  without  whose 
shelter  navigation  would  be  impossible,  and  the  ship  a 
mere  splendid  conception,  —  radiating  in  rivers  which 
alone  could  develop  the  resources  and  furnish  the  mate- 
rials that  freight  our  commerce,  —  branching  into  streams 
and  rivulets  to  irrigate  the  meadows,  to  twine  among  the 
valleys,  and  to  laugh  by  the  poor  man's  door,  —  now 
falling  over  precipices,  and  acquiring  force  to  propel  the 
wheels  of  those  mighty  Babels  that  weave  the  wealth  of 
nations,  —  now  swollen  by  vernal  thaws  and  rains,  and 
bearing  forests  from  their  birthplace  to  the  builder's 
axe. 

Mark  next  the  beautiful  simplicity  of  the  Divine  mech- 
anism by  which  the  distribution  is  made.  There  is  un- 
ceasing waste,  and  yet  unceasing  fulness  ;  —  the  ocean 
replenishing  the  fountain,  the  fountain  speeding  with 
trembling  haste  to  bear  its  tribute  to  the  ocean  ;  the 
river  pouring  its  current  into  the  great  sea,  and  anon 
those  selfsame  waters,  through  cloud,  torrent,  brook,  and 
streamlet,  seeking  the  river  again.  The  circulation  of 
the  waters  is  like  that  of  the  blood  in  the  human  body  ;  — 
the  ocean,  the  vast  heart ;  the  rivers,  the  veins  that 
carry  home  its  tide  ;  the  clouds,  the  arteries  that  dis- 
tribute it  anew ;  the  brooks  and  fountains  corresponding 
to  the  capillary  vessels  that  bear  the  rose-tint  to  the 
cheek  of  youth  and  beauty.     The  system,  too,  is  self- 


THE  PEOVIDENCE   OF   GOD  IN  HUMAN  ART  119 

adjusting,  full  of  mutual  checks  and  offsets,  the  very 
cu'cumstances  that  create  the  need  expeditmg  the  supply. 
The  solar  heat,  as  it  parches  the  continent,  distils  and 
evaporates  the  adjacent  water  of  the  ocean  or  lake,  form- 
ing clouds  which,  like  aerial  burden-ships,  float  away 
with  their  freight  of  bloom  and  harvest  wealth,  and  are 
drawn  by  the  partial  vacuum  to  the  very  regions  where 
intense  heat  has  most  rarefied  the  lower  strata  of  the 
atmosphere,  at  the  same  time  threatening  the  hope  of  the 
husbandman  and  exhausting  the  fountains  of  man's  in- 
dustrial energy. 

But  for  the  numberless  demands  which  man,  more  as 
an  artisan  than  as  a  consumer,  makes  on  nature's  res- 
ervoirs, distribution  is  needed  in  immeasurably  larger 
quantities  than  could  be  endured  in  the  form  of  rain  in 
our  fields  and  about  our  dwellings,  unless  we  were 
amphibious,  and  our  grain  and  grasses  aquatic  plants. 
Mark  next,  then,  the  Divine  providence  by  which  the 
mountains  that  must  forever  remain  uninhabitable  are 
made  the  ocean's  procreant  cradle.  The  levity  of  the 
clouds  as  compared  with  the  lower  sl^rata  of  the  atmos- 
phere, lifts  a  large  proportion  of  them  to  a  height  at 
which  they  are  drifted  against  the  tops  of  the  loftiest 
mountains,  where,  amid 

"  Unceasing  thunder  and  eternal  foam," 

or  in  hail  and  snow,  they  discharge  their  burdens,  and 
form  those  fierce  and  rapid  torrents  which,  as  they 
approach  human  dwellings,  grow  deep  and  broad,  tame 
and  tractable,  so  that  the  very  stream  which  had  rolled 
huge  crags  and  uprooted  primeval  forests  from  the  moun- 
tain-side can  be  resisted  by  the  feeble  stroke  of  a  child's 
oar,  or  made  the  servant  of  all  work  in  a  machine-shop. 


120  CHRISTIANITY  THE   RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

Mark  now  the  relation  of  human  art  to  this  vast  sys- 
tem of  circulation.  The  raft,  in  which  form  alone  could 
lumber  be  delivered  at  its  appropriate  depots  without 
labor  and  cost  that  would  make  a  well-built  house  a 
luxury  attainable  by  none  but  the  very  rich,  simply 
avails  itself  of  the  ocean's  feeding  season  and  of  its  chan- 
nels of  supply,  —  commits  itself  to  their  swollen  bosom, 
—  forces  itself  upon  them  as  the  companion  of  their  inev- 
itable journey.  The  ship,  hardly  less  essential  to  mate- 
rial civilization  than  is  the  Bible  to  spiritual  culture,  is 
the  most  passive  of  all  creatures,  depends  for  its  motion 
on  the  sails  which  diminish  its  power  of  resistance  and 
render  it  even  more  hopelessly  passive,  and  yields  itself 
to  the  very  atmospheric  currents  which  sustain  the  circu- 
lation of  the  waters  by  driving  the  clouds  landward. 
The  water-wheel,  which  multiplies  and  cheapens  to  an 
inconceivable  degree  the  comforts  and  luxuries  of  civil- 
ized life,  merely  plants  itself  in  the  descending  path  of 
the  stream  or  river,  and  revolves  because  its  axis  is  so 
secured  that  it  cannot  be  floated  down.  The  aqueduct, 
which  gushes  as  a  fountain  of  health  in  the  great  city, 
bears  the  same  relation  to  the  course  of  the  stream  which 
feeds  it,  that  is  borne  by  the  air-line  tm'npike  to  the 
serpentine  road  that  leads  by  every  farm-house  ;  and 
depends  for  its  flow  on  the  gradual  declivity  by  which 
the  ocean-born  clouds  descend  from  their  mountain-exile 
to  their  native  home.  Lastly,  the  steam-engine,  the 
most  versatile  of  all  the  works  of  man,  —  now  bearing  on 
its  fire-wings  migrating  multitudes  and  costly  merchan- 
dise across  the  waste  of  waters,  now  twisting  a  gossamer 
thread  or  mending  a  web,  —  is  but  the  intensifying 
(though  in  miniature)  and  harnessing  to  the  industrial 
yoke  of  the  very  process   by  which  the  vapor  exhaled 


THE  PEOVmENCE   OF   GOD  IN  HUMAN  ART.  121 

from  the  ocean  waters  tlie   liills  and  makes  the  desert 
glad. 

I  might  still  further  illustrate  the  providential  element 
in  human  art  by  reminding  you  of  the  limitations  of  art. 
Take  for  an  instance  the  cotton  manufactui-e.  The  Sea- 
Island  cotton,  you  know,  is  greatly  superior  to  the 
Upland  in  length  and  fineness  of  staple.  Now  no  mode 
of  culture,  no  maritime  dressing,  no  copiousness  of  irriga- 
tion, can  overcome  this  difference.  A  profounder  chem- 
istry than  ours  entails  on  these  respective  soils  their  o^vn 
peculiar  growth.  Nor  can  machinery,  however  delicate, 
compensate  for  this  diflPerence,  so  as  to  fabricate  fine 
lawns  and  muslins  from  Upland  cotton  unmixed.  In- 
deed, that  we  are  able  to  spin  cotton  at  all  is  in  no  sense 
owing  to  the  perfectness  of  our  machinery.  There  are 
many  downy  substances  in  nature  which,  to  the  super- 
ficial or  the  naked  eye,  offer  as  fair  a  promise  of  utility  as 
cotton,  yet  which  can  never  be  made  into  thread  or 
cloth.  The  late  Kev.  Dr.  Cutler,  of  Hamilton  in  this 
State,  memorable  as  a  pioneer  in  the  settlement  of  Ohio, 
was  the  first  American  botanist  of  his  day,  and  was 
eminently  utilitarian  in  his  scientific  pursuits.  He  cast 
his  eye  upon  the  common  silk-weed,  or  milk-weed, 
Asclepias  cornuti^  whose  seeds  ripen  in  a  most  luscious 
bed  of  down,  as  a  plant  which  might  rival  or  supersede 
cotton,*  and  enable  us  at  the  North  to  raise  our  own 
clothing,  and  that  on  soil  available  for  hardly  any  other 
purpose.  His  researches  in  this  matter  gained  merited 
attention,  and,  it  was  said,  —  I  know  not  whether  the 
story  be  authentic,  —  were  the  specific  ground  on  which 
certain  literary  honors,  which  he  on  every  account  richly 
deserved,  were  bestowed  by  one  of  our  New  England 
colleges.     But  they  had  no  more  valuable  result.     On 


122  CHRISTIANITY  THE   RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

trial  it  was  found  that  the  silk-weed  has  an  incorrigibly 
short  fibre,  and  of  course  the  spindle  cannot  make  it 
longer ;  that  it  has  a  straight  fibre,  which  cannot  be 
pulled  without  breaking,  while  cotton  has  a  curled  and 
crooked  fibre  which  the  strong  pulling  of  the  machinery- 
only  straightens  ;  and  that  it  has  no  hooks  or  teeth,  so 
that  it  cannot  be  permanently  twisted,  whereas  the  fibres 
of  cotton  are  indented  with  teeth  like  those  of  a  saw, 
which  hook  into  one  another  when  the  fibres  are  twisted, 
and  without  which  no  force  on  earth  could  so  twist  them 
that  they  should  remain  twisted. 

The  sugar  manufacture  offers  us  a  similar  illustration. 
Sugar,  in  order  to  become  fit  for  the  market  or  the  table, 
must  be  granulated,  or  formed  into  minute  polyhedral 
crystals,  each  capable  of  adhering  to  its  neighbor  crys- 
tals, as  in  lumps,  without  their  running  together  as  in  a 
paste.  The  sugar-cane,  the  beet,  and  the  maple  are  the 
only  plants  of  common  and  easy  cultivation  from  which 
sugar  has  been  successfully  made.  Yet,  as  a  chemical 
ingredient,  sugar  enters  into  numerous  vegetable  pro- 
ductions, and  into  none,  perhaps,  more  largely  than  into 
our  common  maize,  from  which  the  manufacture,  as  has 
been  estimated,  would  at  least  double  the  agricultural  rev- 
enue of  the  Free  States  of  our  Union.  With  this  view 
the  corn-stalk  has  been  subjected  to  faithful  and  elabo- 
rate experiment.  The  juice  has  been  expressed,  and  has 
presented  hopefully  all  the  characteristics  of  the  cane- 
juice  ;  but  the  modes  of  crystallizing  the  cane-juice,  and 
all  other  modes  that  science  or  skill  could  suggest,  have 
failed,  simply  because  crystallization  is  a  process,  not  of 
art,  but  of  the  divine  order  of  nature.  Art  can  merely 
supply  the  conditions,  but  cannot  impose  the  law,  and 
the  Creator  has  imposed  the  law  on  the  cane-juice,  and 
not  on  the  corn-juice. 


THE  PROVIDENCE   OF   GOD  IN  HUMAN  ART.  123 

These  illustrations  may  suffice  to  show  the  entire 
dependence  of  human  art  and  skill  on  the  infinite  provi- 
dence of  God,  —  that  providence  which  has  sown  in  the 
bosom  of  creation  the  seeds  of  all  uses  and  capabilities, 
whose  harvest  ripens  along  the  ages  under  the  same  genial 
care  which,  in  the  briefer  spaces  of  a  simpler  husbandry, 
renews  the  face  of  the  earth,  sends  the  early  and  the 
latter  rain,  and  crowns  the  year  with  plenty. 

I  would  next  call  your  attention  to  the  physical  struc- 
ture of  man  as  specially  adapted,  to  the  purposes  of  art. 
There  are  in  one  of  our  devotional  hymns  two  lines 
peculiarly  childish  in  sound,  which  yet  contain  the  whole 
theory  of  civilization,  and  expound  the  earthly  position 
and  destiny  of  the  human  race.     They  are,  — 

"  Why  was  my  body  formed  erect, 
While  brutes  bow  down  to  earth  ?  " 

Were  it  not  for  this  simple  difference,  man  might  be 
possessed  of  all  the  native  intellectual  capacity  he  now 
has,  and  yet  could  gain  scarcely  any  accurate  knowledge 
of  the  universe,  could  embody  his  ideas  only  in  the 
rudest  forms,  could  transmit  very  little  of  his  experience 
and  wisdom  or  their  results  to  future  generations,  and 
could  bequeath  to  his  immediate  posterity  hardly  any- 
thing more  precious  than  some  savage  booth  or  burrow- 
ing-place. 

Man  is  perhaps  the  most  feeble  animal  on  earth  in 
proportion  to  his  size,  yet  he  easily  walks  as  sovereign, 
leads  the  behemoth  in  his  train,  tows  the  leviathan  by 
his  warp,  makes  the  everlasting  hills  bow  before  him, 
lays  his  mandate  and  his  chain  on  the  giant  forces  of 
nature.  And  it  is  chiefly  by  means  of  the  one  divinely 
fashioned  instrument,  the  hand,  —  through  the  elevation, 


124  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

expansion,  and  more  complex  organization  of  the  very 
digits  which  we  trace  in  less  perfect  development  in  the 
anterior  limbs  of  every  quadruped.  The  hand,  —  so 
slender  and  flexible  that  it  might  seem  fitted  neither  for 
doing  nor  enduring,  yet  whose  closely  knit  web-work  of 
nerves  and  sinews  concentrates  the  entire  strength  of  the 
body,  constituting  a  mightier  force  in  proportion  to  its 
magnitude  than  is  found  in  the  whole  universe  beside  ;  — 
the  hand,  combining  all  mechanical  powers  in  one,  —  the 
fingers  jointed  levers,  the  sinews  pulleys,  whose  elastic 
force  is  but  imperfectly  typified  when  by  a  series  of  arti- 
ficial pulleys  a  slender  silken  thread  is  made  to  sustain  as 
heavy  a  weight  as  a  man  could  carry,  the  wrist-joint 
a  perpetual  screw  without  whose  circular  motion  no 
screw  of  steel  would  ever  find  its  way  into  its  socket ; 
—  the  hand,  capable  one  moment  of  wielding  a  giant's 
strength,  and  the  next  of  subserving  the  most  delicate 
uses,  dissecting  the  microscopic  proportions  of  a  flower- 
cup  or  an  insect's  wing,  marking  with  the  graver  air- 
lines subtile  as  the  sunbeams,  copying  the  vanishing 
hues  of  clouds  and  rosebuds  and  the  human  countenance, 
embodying  thought  in  forms  so  ethereal  that  they  might 
seem  inbreathed  by  viewless  spirits,  rather  than  wrought 
by  material  agency,  —  the  hand  it  is  that  makes  man 
what  he  is,  God's  viceroy  upon  the  earth.  Reflect  that 
there  is  no  mechanical  operation,  whether  of  ruder  craft 
or  of  the  highest  art,  the  capacity  of  which  is  not  inherent 
in  the  hand,  the  direction  of  which  is  not  one  of  the  com- 
plex movements  of  which  the  hand  is  susceptible,  the 
efficacy  of  which  does  not  depend  on  the  guidance  or 
restraint  of  the  hand.  And  what  do  we  mean  when  we 
speak  of  water-powder  or  steam-power  taking  the  place  of 
the  hand  ?    Simply  this,  —  that,  imperfectly  copying  some 


THE  PROVIDENCE   OF   GOD  IN  HUMAN  ART.  125 

one  or  more  of  the  countless  number  of  divinely  shaped 
instruments  obtained  by  division  or  combination  from  our 
two  wrist-joints  and  palms  and  our  ten  digits,  we  con- 
struct certain  artificial  hands,  and  then  supply  to  them 
by  the  impetus  of  falling  water  or  expanding  steam  the 
force  which  accrues  from  the  principle  of  life  to  the 
nerves  and  sinews  of  the  vital  organism. 

I  have  selected  the  hand  as  the  prime  executive  mem- 
ber of  the  body,  and  I  scarcely  know  of  an  object  in  the 
universe  which  so  richly  and  beautifully  manifests  the 
Creator's  wisdom,  love,  and  providence,  so  that,  were  I 
obliged  to  confine  myself  to  a  single  illustration,  I  would 
choose  this  before  all  others.  But  there  is  hardly  one  of 
the  perceptive  or  active  powers  of  the  body  which  does 
not  on  analysis  reveal  kindred  adaptations  to  industrial 
uses,  showing  that  man  brings  into  the  world  and  carries 
through  life  fitnesses,  capacities,  and  instrumentalities, 
which  render  art  less  his  choice  and  achievement  than  a 
divinely  imposed  necessity  of  his  nature. 

Nor  are  these  adaptations  confined  to  the  organs  and 
faculties  which  we  usually  connect  in  our  thought  with 
industrial  energy.  They  may  be  traced  equally  in  the 
interior  structure,  in  the  vital  organs  and  functions. 
Consider,  for  instance,  the  nutritive  process  in  man.  I 
look  indeed  with  no  complacency  on  the  lot  of  the  over- 
tasked laborer,  whether  he  be  a  slave  by  arbitrary  law  or 
by  a  no  less  tyrannical  necessity,  and  I  doubt  not  that  in 
a  future  better  than  the  present  all  labor  will  find  its  due 
meed  of  repose,  relaxation,  and  space  for  the  culture  of 
the  higher  faculties.  But  thus  far  the  requirements  of 
human  industry  hr.ve  demanded  of  the  majority  of  man- 
kind the  constant  and  vigorous  employment  of  the  active 
powers  through  the  greater  part  of  every  day ;  and  it  is 


126'  CHRISTIANITY   THE   RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

believed  that  in  no  other  animal  does  nutrition  occupy 
and  digestion  appropriate  to  its  own  pui'poses  so  little 
time  as  in  man.     A  single  hour  in  the  day  might  suffice 
for  the  taking  of  food  (in  our  country  many  abridge  even 
this  scanty  allotment,  though  not  ^yithout  injury  or  peril)  ; 
and  if  food  be  taken  in  moderation,  it  may  pass  through 
all   its   essential   stages  without   impeding   the    physical 
energy.     Thus  man  may  toil  his  ten  or  twelve  hours 
daily  with  no  cost  to  health  or  decline  of  strength.     On 
the    other   hand,    the    ruminating   animals    demand    tor 
nutrition  the  greater  part  of  their  time,  and  are  there- 
fore incapable  of  anything  approaching  the  vigorous  and 
persistent  bodily  exertion  necessary  in  many  departments 
of  human  industry.     The  ox  forms  no  exception.     His 
strength,  indeed,  enables  him   to  draw  heavy  weights  ; 
but  he  can  be  quickened  only  by  cruelty,  and  then  but 
for  brief  periods,  beyond  the  naturally  sluggish  gait  of 
his    species.     Nor   does    the    sustained   velocity    of    the 
camel,  when  we  consider  the  length  of  his  steps,  bear 
any  comparison  to  that  persistent  celerity  of  the  human 
limbs  which  is  essential  alike  to  the  more  subtde  pro- 
cesses and  the  immense  aggregate  of  man's  achievements 
in   the    industrial    arts.     Even    the    horse,    man's   most 
efficient  helper,  yields  to  him  in  the  power  of  continuous 
effort.     He  needs  so  much  time  for  feeding,  that  he  is 
never  capable  of  so  many  hours  of  unintermitted  labor  as 
man,  and  even  in  mere  locomotion,  it  is  well  known  that 
in  a  month  or  any  long  period  of  time  a  well-trained 
pedestrian  will  pass  over  more  ground  than  the  best- 
trained  horse.     You  will  perceive  the  pertinence  of  this 
comparison   to   the    topic   under    discussion,    when   you 
reflect  that  there  are  not  a  few  departments  of  human 
industry,  and  not  infrequent  industrial   emergencies,  in 


THE  PROVIDENCE   OF   GOD  IN  HUMAN  AET.  127 

^hich  persistency  of  labor  is  no  less  essential  than  artis- 
tical  skill,  and  that  this  persistency  is  due,  not  to  man's 
will  or  genius,  but  to  the  providence  of  the  Creator, 
which  has  thus  fitted  him  for  his  place  and  office  as  an 
industrial  agent. 

Again,  it  is  man's  boast  that  he  can  carry  his  industry 
and  art  over  the  whole  world,  and  surround  himself  with 
their  products  in  every  climate.  Let  us  look  somewhat 
in  detail  at  the  providential  element  in  this  cosmopolitan 
adaptation,  in  which  man  stands  alone  among  the  inhab- 
itants of  the  earth.  It  depends  on  the  joint  functions  of 
circulation  and  respiration.  In  the  severity  of  winter  we 
may  observe  a  strong  contrast  between  different  classes 
of  the  exposed.  In  the  narrow  streets  and  ill-built  or 
poorly  repaired  houses  of  our  towns  and  cities,  we  may 
find  poverty-stricken  families  cowering  with  contracted 
limbs  and  chattering  teeth  over  their  scanty  fires,  while 
their  dwellino-s  often  seem  a  mere  lattice- work  desio-ned 
for  the  free  passage  of  the  northern  blast.  But  with  the 
tliermometer  at  its  lowest  range,  the  woodman's  axe 
plies  with  a  vigorous  and  merry  ring ;  the  farmer  trudges 
unchilled  by  the  side  of  his  team  ;  and  warm,  glad  life 
outspeeds  the  wind  it  braves  in  the  swift  sleighs  that 
track  our  interior  river-courses  and  lake-beds.  The 
cause  is  manifestly  internal,  not  external,  —  personal, 
not  atmospheric.  We  are  heated  chiefly,  not  from  with- 
out, but  from  within,  —  not  by  the  fuel  burned  in  our 
presence,  but  by  the  fuel  which  we  ourselves  consume. 
We  carry  about  with  us  each  his  own  hearth,  with  its 
vestal  fire,  —  las  own  stove,  with  its  perpetual  radiation 
of  heat.  Our  lungs  are  the  seat  of  a  constant  combus- 
tion, liicrally  of  a  coal-fire,  kindled  with  our  first  breath, 
extinguished  only  with  our  last.     The  fuel  is  the  carbon 


128  CHRISTIANITY  THE  EELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

and  hydrogen  contained  in  our  food,  carried  witli  other 
elements  through  the  process  of  digestion  and  blood- 
making,  conveyed  to  the  lungs,  and  then  oxidized,  or,  in 
other  words,  ignited  and  burned,  by  the  oxygen  inhaled 
from  the  atmosphere. 

This  process  it  is  that  heats  the  body,  and  at  the  same 
time  resists  to  a  certain,  and  in  some  cases  to  an  almost 
incredible  degree,  the  eflPect  of  external  heat.    In  extreme 
cold  no  particle  of  blood  remains  near  the  surface  for 
more  than  an  instant ;  but  the  enth^e  life-tide  passes  con- 
stantly to  and  from  this  central  hearth,  thus  sending  to 
the  surface  from  moment  to  moment  a  freslily  heated 
current.     On   the   other   hand,   at  an  excessively  high 
temperature,  the  ceaseless  withdrawal  of  blood  fi'om  the 
surface  before  it  can  become  unduly  heated  preserves  the 
internal  temperature  unchanged.     This  apparatus  is  imi- 
tated in  that  most   effective    mode    of  warming   build- 
ings, —  a  system  of  hot-water  pipes,  in  which  a  heated 
and  rarefied  current  of  water  sets  constantly  from  the 
fui-nace  or  lungs  to  the  remoter  parts  of  the  system,  and 
a  cooled  and  condensed  current  returns,  as  constantly,  to 
be  heated  over  again.     By  virtue  of  this  arrangement  in 
the  human  frame,  a  variation  of  more  than  two  hundred 
degrees  in  external  heat,  from  the  drying-room  or  the 
mouth  of  a  forge  to  the  lowest  Arctic  temperature,  occa- 
sions a  difference  of  not  more  than  three  or  four  degrees 
in  the  human  body. 

Now  the  contrast  between  the  suffering  and  the  non- 
sufferino-  in  the  severer  exposures  of  our  Northern  climate 
is  due  to  the  different  amounts  of  fuel  employed  to  feed 
the  internal  flame.  Fire,  it  is  said,  -annot  warm  the 
very  poor,  and  this  is  because  their  meagre  vegetable 
food,  even  if  it  seem  unstinted,  is  deficient  in  carbon. 


THE  PROVIDENCE   OF   GOD  IN  HUMAN  ART.  129 

On  the  other  hand,  those  who  meet  the  bleakest  ex- 
posures witliout  suffering  are  well  fed  on  carbon-yielding 
food,  and  tlie  fire  that  they  carry  witli  them  never  burns 
low  for  lack  of  fuel.  Tlie  perfect  working  of  this  appa- 
ratus has  its  best  illustration  in  the  experience  of  Dr. 
Kane  and  his  companions.  With  a  temperature  some- 
times of  seventy  degrees  below  zero,  and  for  weeks 
together  never  rising  above  forty,  often  burrowing  in  the 
snow  at  these  low  temperatures,  they  found  themselves 
more  dependent  on  food  than  on  fire.  With  an  adequate 
supply  of  raw  walrus  meat  and  other  unctuous,  carbon- 
yielding  food,  they  enjoyed  health,  comfort,  vigor,  gay- 
ety,  hopefulness.  When  this  supply  fell  short,  the 
red-hot  cabin  stove  seemed  to  yield  no  warmth,  —  na- 
ture drooped,  sickened,  and  was  ready  to  perish,  reviving 
again,  and  glowing  with  its  wonted  fires,  when  a  kind 
Providence  again  spread  their  board  in  proportion  to 
their  need.-^ 

This  self-heating  apparatus  has  a  most  essential  bear- 
ing on  man's  industrial  capacity.  By  virtue  of  it  he  can 
toil  at  the  forge  and  the  furnace-mouth,  and  chase  the 
whale  and  trap  the  seal  in  Polar  seas  ;  can  say  to  the 
North,  "  Give  up,"  and  to  the  South,  "  Keep  not  back  "  ; 
can  bring  together  the  fi-uits  of  every  zone,  and  blend  in 
the  products  of  his  industry  the  contributions  of  every 
soil  and  climate. 

In  man  alone  does  this  system  attain  a  perfect  adjust- 
ment. Other  animals  have  their  limits  of  latitude,  some 
broader,  some  more  restricted ;  none  are  cosmopolites. 
The   camel  and  the  reindeer  could  not  change  places. 

1  The  reader  can  hardly  fail  to  be  reminded  here  that  in  high  Arctic  lati- 
tudes hardly  any  other  than  strongly  unctuous  food  is  attainable,  and  that  of 
this,  under  ordinary  circumstances,  the  natives  are  able  to  obtain  an  abundant 
supply. 

6*  I 


130  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION  OF  NATURE. 

The  elephant  could  not  whiter  in  Greenland.  The  polar 
bear  swelters  under  the  tempered  heat  of  one  of  our 
October  days.  Man  alone  can  Hve  and  work  wherever 
land,  iceberg,  or  ocean  gives  him  room  to  stand  or  float. 

This  vein  of  illustration  might  be  followed  much  fur- 
ther ;  but  I  leave  it,  to  develop  a  still  more  intimate  re- 
lation between  human  art  and  the  Creator.     All  art  is 
mathematical.     Thus  music  is  equally  with  arithmetic  a 
science    of    numbers;    Pythagoras    and    Orpheus   were 
equally  identified  with  its  early  development ;  and  it  was 
better  understood  by  Newton,  La  Grange,  and  Euler, 
than  by  Mozart,  Beethoven,  or  Rossini.     The  problem 
of  the  flute-note  is  discussed  in  the  Principia  with  the 
harmony  of  the  spheres.     The  relative  magnitude  of  the 
pipes  of  the  organ,  the  length  of  their  vibrations  respec- 
tively, and  the  qualities  of  the  resulting  tones,  form  a 
series  of  numerical  proportions  no  less  definite  and  uni- 
form* than  those  which  govern  the  planetary  orbits  ;  and 
the  reason  why  the  reed-pipes  are  oftener  out  of  tune 
than  the  others  is,  that  -they  involve  complex  problems 
which  still  lack  a  complete  solution,  so  that  the  rules  for 
their  construction  are  but  empirical.     Musical  intervals 
are  rightly  designated  by  numerical  names,  and  might  be 
as  well  represented  on  the  score  by  numbers  as  by  notes. 
Colors  have  their  mathematical  no  less  than  their  chem- 
ical  laws,  and,  as   they  are   separated  by  the   prism  or 
combined  in   art,   they  indicate  relations  which  can  be 
expressed   only  by  abstract  formulae.     Painting   has  no 
merit,  unless  the  drawing  be  true,  and  all  true  drawing 
corresponds  to  one    or   another    mode    of  mathematical 
projection.     Architecture  and  mechanical  operations  of 
every  kind  depend  on  definite  proportions,  the  violation 


THE  PROVIDENCE   OF   GOD  IN  HUMAN  ART.  131 

of  which  can  be  compensated  by  no  exuberance  of  beauty 
or  misplaced  accumulation  of  strength,  but  must  issue  in 
utter  waste  and  ruin.  Every  department  of  engineering, 
the  grading  of  the  routes  of  travel,  the  construction  of 
railways  and  bridges,  the  safety  and  efficiency  of  the 
water-wheel,  the  entire  science  of  navigation,  —  all  de- 
pend on  mathematical  laws  coeval  and  coextensive  with 
the  universe,  and  navigation,  on  these  laws  as  they  span 
the  solar  system,  and  extend  to  stars  whose  distances 
elude  calculation.  The  practical  rules  of  even  the  in- 
ferior arts,  the  rules  recognized  by  the  laborer  who 
knows  not  the  multiphcation-table,  are  derived  from 
these  world-embracing,  universe-girdling  laws.  Were 
it  not  for  the  perception  of  these  laws,  we  should  still 
be  at  the  lowest  point  of  civilization.  We  should  dare 
to  rear  only  structures  frail  as  a  tent,  or  of  ungainly  and 
superfluous  massiveness  like  the  pyramids ;  no  machine 
or  mechanical  power  beyond  a  rude  knife  or  mallet 
would  help  us  in  our  toil ;  and  our  hollowed  trunks  of 
trees  or  bark  canoes  would  still  timidly  skirt  the  sea- 
shore, and  not  venture  beyond  sight  of  land. 

But  the  mathematical  science  in  which  art  has  its 
birth  is  literally  a  portion  of  the  Divine  mind.  So  far 
as  we  are  cognizant  of  it,  God  gives  us  glimpses  of  the 
plan  of  the  universe,  permits  us  to  handle  the  compasses 
with  which  he  meted  out  the  earth  and  spread  the  heav- 
ens, enables  us  to  see  precisely  as  he  sees. 

Here,  then,  is  the  highest  dignity  of  art.  It  is  the 
embodiment  of  absolute  truth,  the  circumscription  in 
material  forms  of  universal  and  eternal  laws,  tlie  tran- 
script by  human  hands  of  the  thoughts  of  God.  Its 
rules  could  have  been  devised,  codified,  and  applied  only 
by  minds  that  were  taken  up  by  the  Creator  into  his  own 


132  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

point  of  view,  —  taught  by  liis  inspiration  tlie  very  rela- 
tions and  proportions  that  dwelt  from  all  eternity  in  his 
omniscience,  and  were  crystallized  by  his  fiat  in  worlds, 
suns,  and  systems. 

We  have  now  reached  the  climax  of  human  art.  JNIan 
disappears,  and  what  he  calls  his  work  is  but  the  man- 
ifestation of  the  one  creative,  all-pervading  Spirit,  — 
great  and  glorious  in  the  massive  and  sky-reaching 
structures  of  human  genius,  in  the  world-subduing  en- 
ergies of  science,  in  the  thronged  marts  of  industry  and 
traffic,  no  less  than  in  the  silent  mountain,  the  primeval 
forest,  or  the  many- twinkling  smile  and  the  multitudi- 
nous roar  of  the  ocean-waves. 

While  the  discussion  in  which  I  have  led  you  this 
evening  has  its  fitting  and  almost  necessary  place  in  a 
course  of  Lectures  on  natural  religion,  I  am  the  more 
glad  to  lead  you  over  this  ground,  because  the  tendency 
of  our  times  is,  I  might  almost  say,  to  art- worship,  —  to 
the  sentiment  which  had  its  type  and  reached  its  cul- 
minating-point  in  the  ancient  monarch,  when  he  said, 
"  Is  not  this  great  Babylon  that  I  have  bmlt,  by  the 
might  of  my  power  and  for  the  honor  of  my  majesty  ?  " 
Much  of  the  practical  skill,  mechanical  genius,  and  exec- 
utive capacity  of  the  day  is  materialistic,  —  Titanic  ahke 
in  its  strength  and  its  impiety,  worshipping  only  its  own 
capacity  and  its  master-workmen.  The  rapidity  and 
vastness  of  man's  aggressions  upon  nature,  the  iron 
girdles  with  which  he  clasps  the  continent,  the  light- 
nings that  bear  his  mandates  from  zone  to  zone,  are 
constantly  dwelt  upon,  not  as  outgoings  of  Omnipotent 
Wisdom,  but  as  the  apotheosis  of  art  and  science,  and  the 
great  discoverers,  inventors,  and  mechanicians  of  the  age 


THE   PROVIDENCE   OF   GOD   IN   HUxMA.V   ART.  133 

have  honors  rendered  to  them  hardly  less  than  divine. 
Meanwhile  the  sacred  solitudes  where  holy  men  were 
wont  to  commune  in  silence  with  the  Almighty  are  soli- 
tudes no  longer.  Art  obtrudes  her  forces  where  once 
were  secluded  shrines  of  natural  grandeur  and  beauty, 
lays  her  iron  track  across  the  sunless  ravines,  wakes  with 
the  shout  and  tramp  of  her  cars  the  echoes  of  the  ancient 
hills. 

I  have  endeavored  to  show  you  that  these  works  of 
man  are  in  a  higher  and  more  intimate  sense  the  works 
of  God,  —  that  in  all  in  which  man  seeks  his  own  glory 
he  but  manifests  the  glory  of  the  Creator.  "  Let  the 
people  praise  thee,  O  God,  yea,  let  all  the  people  praise 
thee."  The  views  that  I  have  presented  blend  in  worship 
the  tribute  of  art  with  the  spontaneous  incense  that  floats 
in  temples  on  which  there  has  been  no  sound  of  axe  or 
hammer,  —  compels  the  throng  and  tide  of  toiling  hands 
and  throbbing  brains  and  reasoning  minds  to  take  up  the 
strain  of  universal  nature,  the  song  of  angels  and  of  ran- 
somed men  :  —  "  Great  and  marvellous  are  thy  works, 
Lord  God  Almighty,  —  great  where  thy  hand  hath 
wrought  in  everlasting  silence,  no  less  marvellous  where 
thine  inspiration  hath  guided,  thy  might  strengthened, 
thy  loving  providence  crowned,  the  work  of  thy  children 
upon  earth." 


LECTURE    VII. 

THE  PROVIDENCE   OF  GOD  IN  HUMAN  SOCIETY. 

My  last  Lecture  related  to  the  Divine  Providence  in 
art.  I  propose  this  evening  to  consider  that  same  Prov- 
idence as  manifested  in  the  diversity  of  native  endow- 
ments, capacities,  and  tendencies  among  the  races  of  men 
and  among  individuals  of  the  same  race. 

The  Scriptural  idea  of  mankind  is  that  of  unity  in 
diversity,  —  one  body,  many  members,  —  the  same  spirit, 
diverse  gifts  and  administrations,  —  one  God,  who  work- 
eth  all  in  all,  but  who  distributes  talents  and  capabilities 
with  reference  not  alone  to  individual  well-being,  but 
equally  to  the  common  good.  The  solidarity  of  the  race, 
so  far  from  being  a  modern  idea,  has  the  most  complete 
statement  of  it  that  was  ever  made  m  the  twelfth  chap- 
ter of  St.  Paul's  Fu-st  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  and 
crops  out,  as  one  of  his  favorite  conceptions,  in  numerous 
passages  of  his  other  Epistles.  What  more  perfect  ex- 
pression of  it  can  human  language  admit  of,  than  when, 
making  Christ  the  head,  he  adds  :  "  From  whom  the 
whole  body,  fitly  joined  together,  and  compacted  from 
that  which  every  joint  supplieth,  accordmg  to  the  effect- 
ual working  of  the  measui-e  in  every  part,  maketh  in- 
crease of  the  body  to  the  edifying  of  itself  in  love  "  ? 

Let  us  see  how  this  idea  verifies  itself  in  the  actual 
condition  of  mankind.  We  will  look  first  at  the  several 
races  of  men.     Nothing  can  be  more  obvious  than  the 


THE  PROVIDENCE   OF   GOD  IN  HUMAN  SOCIETY.       135 

indelibleness  of  national  characteristics.  Barbarism  does 
not  obliterate  tliem,  nor  does  tlie  highest  cultivation  sup- 
plant them.  The  types  may  be  improved  or  deteriorated, 
but  they  always  remain  distinct.  The  Jew  is  a  Jew  all 
the  world  over,  and  as  much  so  now  that  he  has  had  no 
country  of  his  own  for  nearly  eighteen  centuries,  as  when 
Jerusalem  was  in  its  glory.  The  Greeks  have  retained 
their  love  of  nature  and  of  art  through  ages  of  depression 
and  enslavement. 

"  On  Suli's  rock  and  Parga's  shore 
Exist  the  remnants  of  a  hne 
Such  as  the  Doric  mothers  bore," 

and  the  nation  is  awaking  from  its  slumber  with  the  very 
same  salient  features  which  we  trace  in  the  Periclean 
era.  The  Hindoo,  though  imbued  with  all  the  literature 
and  wisdom  of  Europe,  still  retains  his  Asiatic  cast  of 
mind  and  stamp  of  character  ;  while  Europeans  may  live 
generation  after  generation  in  Hindostan  or  in  China  with- 
out becoming  Orientalized,  and  may  found  and  people 
colonies  in  every  zone  without  any  essential  change  of 
the  traits  that  distinguished  them  in  the  countries  whence 
they  came.  These  things  premised,  we  will  now,  to 
illustrate  the  solidarity  of  the  human  family  in  the  differ- 
ences of  the  races,  consider  the  Caucasian,  the  Asiatic, 
and  the  African  groups  of  nations  respectively,  —  a 
division  by  no  means  exhausting  or  scientifically  exact, 
yet  sufficiently  so  for  the  use  I  propose  to  make  of  it. 

The  Caucasian  race,  wherever  found,  holds  the  fore- 
most place  as  to  the  cognitive  and  reasoning  faculties, 
strength  of  will,  love  of  power,  and  executive  energy. 
These  qualities  have,  indeed,  been  kept  in  abeyance 
during  portions  of  the  history  of  some  nations,  through 


136  CHRISTIANITY   THE  RELIGION  OF  NATURE. 

the  repressive  force  of  religious  superstition  or  of  govern 
mental  oppression  ;  but  there  is  no  one  of  the  group  that 
has  not  at  some  period  manifested  them,  and  that  would 
not  be  expected  to  manifest  them  were  the  limiting  cu'- 
cumstances  partially  removed.  They  seem  born  rulers 
and  lawgivers,  are  impatient  of  restraint,  uneasy  subjects 
of  arbitrary  sway,  and  incapable  of  being  permanently 
enslaved  or  subdued.  They  have  the  clear,  scientific 
eye,  the  power  and  habit  of  ratiocination,  an  indisposi- 
tion to  take  truth  on  trust,  an  aptness  for  investigation, 
research,  and  discovery.  They  have  furnished  all  the 
great  mventors  of  the  race,  if  we  except  those  that  must 
at  some  remote  epoch  have  flourished  among  the  Clihiese 
and  Japanese,  from  whom  they  differ  in  the  vigorous 
and  rapid  progress  of  then'  art,  while  among  the  Eastern 
nations  art  is  stationary,  and  its  processes  slow,  conduct- 
ed with  little  aid  from  macliinery,  and  with  an  indis- 
position to  learn  new  and  improved  methods.  But  with 
the  Caucasian  races,  the  imagination  follows  in  the  wake 
of  reason,  intuition  lags  behmd  demonstration,  and  the 
affections,  instead  of  giving  law,  are  in  subjection  to  the 
intellectual  nature. 

The  Asiatic  mind  is  easily  swayed  by  impressions  from 
without,  in  close  sympathy  with  nature,  keenly  sensitive 
to  its  beauties  and  its  harmonies,  full  of  gorgeous  fancies, 
rich  in  poetic  elements,  kaleidoscopic  in  the  profusion, 
variety,  and  splendor  of  its  imaginative  hterature.  But 
it  is  slow  to  reason,  it  has  neither  prudence  nor  persist- 
ency in  comisel,  and  its  affections  ai'e  subordinated  to 
the  imagination. 

The  African  races,  with  all  their  depression,  still  show 
in  some  directions  superior  capacity.  Docility,  obedi- 
ence, and  love  are  their  native  traits,  —  traits  not  devel- 


THE  PROVIDENCE   OF   GOD  IN  HUMAN  SOCIETY.       137 

oped  by  theii-  long  sei^tude,  but  essential  to  render  their 
enslavement  possible  ;  for  the  experiment  of  enslaving 
other  races  has  been  repeatedly  tried,  but  has  never  per- 
manently succeeded.  The  Africans  often  submit  to  their 
bondage,  with  full  consciousness  of  their  wrongs  and  of 
their  power  to  resent  them,  by  virtue  of  a  moral  instinct 
averse  from  violence,  and  willing  to  endure  oppression 
rather  than  to  avenge  it.  Whatever  culture  they  receive 
goes  at  once  to  the  aflPections,  —  takes  a  moral  and 
religious  direction.  To  educate  them  is,  with  rare  ex- 
ceptions, to  make  them  devout,  gi'ateful,  kind,  and 
exemplary  in  their  social  relations  and  duties.  With 
the  highest  culture  that  they  can  attain,  it  is  doubtful 
whether  they  will  ever  excel  in  science,  art,  or  poetry, 
or  Avill  ftirnish  any  considerable  proportion  of  command- 
ing, cogent  minds.  But  there  is  every  reason  to  believe 
that  they  may  be  so  trained  as  to  exhibit  the  richest 
traits  of  moral  excellence,  to  be  the  ready  recipients  of 
the  highest  social  influences,  and  to  reflect  the  love,  as 
other  races  reflect  the  wisdom  and  beauty,  of  the  Cre- 
ator. 

The  relations  of  these  several  races  are  now  deranged, 
and  their  mutual  correspondences  obscured,  by  the  pres- 
ence of  moral  evil.  The  Caucasian,  in  the  pride  of  his 
strength,  makes  the  Asiatic  his  tributary,  the  African  his 
slave,  and,  in  his  insatiable  lust  for  power  and  territory,  is 
always  ready  to  convert  the  earth  into  an  Aceldama  and 
a  Golgotha.  Thus  reason  and  will  usurp  the  suprem- 
acy over  the  gentler  elements  of  character,  and  mutual 
alienation  —  contempt  and  fear,  violence  and  ■v\Tong-suf- 
fering  —  prevents  the  nations  fi'om  recognizing  in  one 
another  the  traits  of  the  godlike  which  each  might  admire 
and  copy  in  every  other.     But  let  the  ages  roll  on,  and, 


138  CHEISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION  OF  NATURE. 

while  science  and  skill  weave  their  network  of  ever  closer 
material  communion  and  interest,  let  the  gospel  of  broth- 
erhood clasp  its  zone  around  the  nations,  and  put  a  period 
to  war,  slavery,  and  oppression,  —  then  may  not  the  dif- 
ferences of  the  races  blend  in  the  most  perfect  and  beau- 
tiiul  harmony?  May  not  each  from  its  peculiar  vein 
contribute  equally  to  the  joint  stock  of  elevating  and 
refining  influences  ?  May  not  each  be  at  once  the 
source  and  the  recipient  of  sentiments  and  impulses, 
without  which  neither  can  fill  its  place  and  discharge 
its  mission  ?  Will  not  reason  own  the  transcendent  love- 
liness of  the  affections,  and  they  in  their  turn  do  homage 
to  the  majesty  of  reason,  and  fancy,  while  it  breathes 
poetry  into  science  and  shapes  the  paradise  of  love,  seek 
where  it  bestows,  and  draw  truth  and  fervor  from  the 
yery  fomitains  into  which  it  pours  its  own  exuberant 
'wealth  of  beauty  ?  Thus  in  coming  ages  will  the  whole 
human  family  combine  to  constitute  the  second  Adam, 
myriad-formed,  beai^ng  every  capacity  and  perfection 
that  the  first  Adam  might  have  developed  had  he  re- 
mained sinless  in  Eden.  Thus  mil  the  immeasui^able 
Creator  see  the  whole  circle  of  his  attributes  reflected 
fi'om  the  face  of  humanity  with  a  resplendence  infinitely 
brighter  than  can  ever  be  miiTored  in  the  material  uni- 
verse, or  has  been  beheld  in  the  human  form  except  in 
Him  alone  who  in  the  form  of  man  outrayed  the  bright- 
ness of  the  Father's  glory.  The  development  of  these 
harmonies  may  be  yet  far  distant ;  but  in  the  capacity 
for  them  wliich  om'  race  manifests  in  its  present  blind- 
ness and  peiwersion,  in  the  tendency  to  them  which  we 
discern  through  all  the  darkness  and  misery  that  brood 
over  the  earth,  we  mark  the  tokens  of  a  far-seeing  prov- 
idence, which  we  can  trace  back  throuo;h  all  the  a^es 


THE  PEOVIDENCE   OF   GOD  IN  HUMAN  SOCIETY.       139 

of  authentic  history,  and  thus,  with  undoubting  faith,  on 
through  an  ever-brightening  future. 

From  this  broad  view  let  us  now  pass  to  the  distribu- 
tion of  talents  among  persons  of  the  same  age  and  nation. 
Here  it  cannot  be  needful  to  defend  the  position,  that 
the  differences  of  ability  are  in  great  part  native,  not 
acquired ;  —  that  genius  and  talent,  so  far  from  being 
the  result  of  education  or  of  favoring  circumstances,  will 
work  their  way  through  obstacles  that  seem  insurmount- 
able, and  will  make  any  posture  of  circumstances  pro- 
pitious to  their  own  development ;  while  many  persons 
who  would  gladly  distinguish  themselves  in  particular 
departments,  who  do  all  that  they  can  do,  and  are 
helped  by  others  so  far  as  help  can  be  made  availing, 
hardly  reach  mediocrity.  This  diversity  of  natural  gifts 
is  so  almost  universally  admitted,  that  any  argument  in 
its  favor  would  seem  lost  labor.  Taking  it,  then,  for 
granted,  we  will  proceed  to  consider  the  Divine  prov- 
idence in  their  distribution. 

Writers  on  natural  religion  are  wont  to  infer  the  wis- 
dom and  goodness  of  the  Creator  from  the  distribution  of 
land  and  water,  of  wood,  salt,  coal,  and  metals,  in  fine, 
of  all  the  materials  of  man's  outward  well-being,  in  such 
a  way  that  the  relation  of  demand  and  supply  can  never 
suffer  any  serious  derangement.  The  same  relation  of 
demand  and  supply  prevails  in  man's  native  endowments 
and  capacities.  Talents  are  bestowed  as  they  are  needed 
and  can  be  used,  with  that  liberal  frugality,  that  measured 
generosity,  which  enhances  the  value  of  all  God's  higher 
gifts,  and  attests  the  careful  economy  of  the  Giver. 

The  only  universal  need  is  that  of  moral  goodness; 
and  of  this  the  capacity  is  universal,  except  in  the  rare 
case  of  mental    disease  ;  while  (as   I    shall  show  here- 


140  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

after)  the  humblest  mtellectual  endowments  do  not 
preclude  one  even  from  eminence  in  goodness.  For 
hand-labor  and  mechanical  operations  a  very  large  sup- 
ply of  human  strength  and  skill  is  always  needed,  and,  to 
meet  this  need,  the  great  majority  of  men  are  so  consti- 
tuted as  to  be  fitted  for  such  departments  of  industry,  to 
find  improvement  and  happiness  in  them,  and,  with  other 
walks  of  life  in  full  view,  to  be  conscious  neither  of 
desu-e  nor  of  adaptation  for  a  different  sphere.  Then 
there  is  needed  a  certain  proportion  of  men  capable  of 
conducting  combined  industry  and  extended  entei-prise, 
of  du'ecting  the  skill  and  employing  the  labor  of  others, 
and  of  distributing  and  exchanging  the  products  of  agri- 
culture and  handcraft.  It  is  a  patent  fact  that  these 
departments  of  business  are  sadly  overcrowded  ;  but  the 
multitude  of  those  who  cannot  by  any  training  be  moulded 
into  a  capacity  for  them,  and  who  flounder  on  through 
successive  failures  from  a  sanguine  youth  to  a  poverty- 
stricken  old  age,  authorizes  the  belief  that  the  Creator 
has  fitted  for  these  duties  no  more  than  the  world  needs. 
We  verify  the  same  law  of  distribution  in  social  and 
political  relations.  Of  minds  capable  of  leading  and 
controlling  the  action  of  other  minds,  bearing  the  signa- 
ture of  native  supremacy,  endowed  with  the  legitimate 
right  and  power  of  influence,  there  are  enough,  yet  not 
more  than  enough,  to  serve  as  interpreters  of  truth  and 
duty,  counsellors,  judges,  magistrates,  and  legislators. 
Nor  is  this  proportion  essentially  modified  by  the  institu- 
tions of  society.  It  is  as  large  among  savage  as  among 
civilized  nations  ;  it  furnishes  the  same  relative  quota  of 
leaders  and  sages  for  the  council-fire  in  the  wigwam  as 
for  the  senate  or  the  parliament.  Ai'bitrary  forms  of 
government  do  not  diminish  the  number  of  these  con- 


THE   PROVIDENCE   OF   GOD   IN   HUMAN   SOCIETY.       141 

trolling  minds,  though,  when  crowded  out  of  their  ap- 
propriate spheres,  they  either,  as  in  modern  Germany, 
waste  themselves  in  fruitless  activity,  becoming  poets 
without  inspiration,  authors  without  taste  or  tact,  super- 
numeraries in  departments  of  literature  and  research  that 
demand  a  widely  different  order  of  intellect,  or,  as  in 
Italy,  they  employ  their  genius  in  undermining  the  insti- 
tutions of  which  they  are  the  natural  conservators  and 
administrators.  Nor  does  a  democratic  regime^  as  it  is 
sometimes  idly  asserted,  multiply  talents  of  this  class  ; 
but  when  offices  outnumber  the  needs  of  the  people,  are 
created  for  party  purposes,  and  sought  for  their  spoils,  for 
lack  of  fit  candidates  they  must  be  filled  by  men  desti- 
tute of  the  capacity  to  counsel,  legislate,  rule,  or  judge. 

To  pass  to  the  realm  of  literature  and  art,  the  poet  is 
born,  not  made.  If  he  could  be  made  by  mere  endeavor 
or  practice,  there  would  be  as  many  poets  as  readers ;  for 
the  habit  of  rhyming  is  contracted  at  some  period  by 
almost  every  person  that  can  write,  and  is  persisted  in 
through  life  by  very  many.  Yet  of  poets  by  birthright 
and  the  gift  of  God  there  are  exceedingly  few  in  any  one 
generation,  in  some  scarce  any,  though  on  the  muster- 
roll  of  all  ages  and  lands  they  constitute  no  mean  array, 
and  are  sufficiently  various  and  divergent  in  style  and 
subject  to  meet  every  hue  and  grade  of  taste,  and  to  fur- 
nish every  description  of  demand.  Were  the  poets  still 
fewer,  their  works  would  be  inaccessible  to  many  capa- 
ble of  enjoying  them  to  the  full,  and  some  veins  of  true 
poetic  sentiment  would  be  overlooked,  some  tastes  un- 
provided for.  Were  they  more  numerous,  the  fruits 
of  their  genius  would  be  less  precious,  less  enjoyed, 
less  prized,  and  the  world,  flooded  with  true  poetry,  as 
now  with  its  counterfeit,  would  lose  the  power  of  appre- 
ciation. 


142  CHEISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

Here  I  would  have  you  remark  the  rigid,  merciful, 
and  beautiful  parsimony  which,  in  all  the  higher  depart- 
ments of  art  and  literature,  governs  the  proportion  be- 
tween power  and  taste,  genius  and  susceptibility,  — 
between  those  who  create  and  those  who  can  enjoy  and 
appreciate.  In  these  departments  one  can  minister  to 
the  pleasure  and  profit  of  hundreds,  thousands,  com- 
munities, nations  ;  and,  accordingly,  to  one  capable  of 
thus  ministering,  there  are  multitudes  that  can  avail 
themselves  of  his  ministxy.  Of  all  the  higher  forms  of 
art,  the  most  common  is  oratory,  —  that  is,  the  capacity 
of  kindling,  swaying,  convincing,  persuading,  gladdening 
gathered  crowds  by  the  vivid  presentation,. in  word  and 
gesture,  of  thoughts  and  sentiments  capable  of  powerfully 
interesting  and  moving  the  judgment  and  the  emotional 
nature.  This  gift  is  sufficiently  common  to  bring  all 
occasionally  within  the  sphere  of  its  exercise,  yet  suf- 
ficiently rare  to  make  that  exercise  an  uncloying  and 
unwearying  joy  to  the  hearers.  But  of  true  orators  a 
large  proportion  succeed  by  virtue  of  endowments  eva- 
nescent in  their  nature,  and  have  not  the  higher  power 
of  clothing  their  burning  thoughts  in  words  that  can  re- 
tain their  prestige  beyond  reach  of  the  living  7oice  ;  for 
authors  are  much  fewer  than  orators.  The  capacity  of 
successful  authorship,  immeasurably  rarer  than  the  en- 
deavor, is  yet  frequent  enough  for  the  needs  of  the  read- 
ing public,  even  were  education  universal ;  but  among 
those  who  can  read  with  discrimination,  pleasure,  and 
profit  the  records  of  fancy,  wit,  or  wisdom,  there  is  not 
one  in  ten  thousand  whom  any  possible  training  could 
have  made  the  writer  of  books  that  would  live  and  last. 
In  the  plastic  arts,  of  artists  worthy  of  the  name,  or  of 
those  who  by  any  possibility  could  have  become  such, 


THE  PROVroENCE  OF  GOD  IN  HUMAN  SOCIETY.       143 

there  are  very  few.  Were  there  more,  their  creations 
would  cease  to  be  valued  and  to  give  pleasure.  There 
are  enough,  and  no  more  than  enough,  to  minister  to  the 
taste  of  the  thousands  and  millions  who  can  be  glad- 
dened, improved,  refined,  and  elevated  by  their  works. 
Of  musical  composers,  actual  and  potential,  there  are 
enough,  yet  not  more  than  enough,  to  fUi'nish  compass 
and  variety  for  the  incessant  demand  made  for  social, 
festive,  and  rehgious  uses.  Skilful  musical  performers, 
also,  are  to  be  everywhere  fomid  in  sufficient  number 
for  the  solace,  dehght,  and  edification  of  all  who  rejoice 
in  the  concord  of  sweet  sounds.  Yet  the  most  diligent 
use  of  the  Pestalozzian  system,  the  most  assiduous  drill- 
mg  of  the  infant  ear  and  voice,  falls  far  short  of  develop- 
ing the  predicted  universality  of  musical  talent,  which  we 
might  well  deprecate  —  had  not  a  kind  Providence  set 
up  impassable  barriers  agamst  it — as  rendering  the  art 
cheap,  paltry,  and  worthless.  Let  trainmg-schools  of 
music  be  established  in  every  hamlet,  let  musical  instruc- 
tion be  proffered  to  eveiy  pupil  in  all  om-  semmaries  of 
learning,  from  the  Kindergarten  to  the  college,  let  a  piano 
find  shelter  under  every  roof,  —  still  the  proportion  of 
those  who  can  yield  delight  by  musical  performance  to 
those  who  can  enjoy,  and  in  some  good  measure  appre- 
ciate, the  achievements  of  musical  skill  and  genius,  must 
ever  remain  small. 

In  the  distribution  of  natural  endowments  which  1 
have  now  exhibited  there  are  several  points  worthy  of 
emphatic  consideration.  1.  The  higher  tastes,  the  intel- 
lectual demands,  of  the  vast  majority  of  mankind  are  fully 
met  without  their  being  taken  from  the  walks  of  produc- 
tive industry.  They  can  enjoy  all  the  pleasure  and  all 
the   mental   emolument  of  art,   literature,   and  poetry, 


144  CHRISTIANITY   THE   RELIGION   OF   NATURE. 

tlirougli  labor,  self-discipline,  and  self-sacrific-e  in  which 
they  have  borne  no  part.  2.  The  classes  of  talent  which 
are  developed  the  most  slowly  and  laboriously  are  distrib- 
uted the  most  sparingly,  and  are  at  the  same  tune  en- 
dowed with  an  extent  of  influence  commensui^ate  with 
the  outlay  of  time  and  effort  in  their  cultivation.  3.  In 
proportion  to  the  difficulties  to  be  overcome,  the  toil  to 
be  performed,  the  sacrifice  to  be  borne,  in  the  cultivation 
of  any  class  of  talents,  is  its  power  of  self-diffiision  in  space 
and  time.  Thus  the  poet  or  the  artist  of  the  highest 
type,  made  what  he  is  only  by  stern  self-denial  and  rigid 
self-discipline,  gives  his  name  to  his  age,  transmits  his 
memory  to  all  succeeding  centuries,  and  is  compensated 
for  toil  and  straitness  by  the  assurance  that  his  works  will 
live  in  distant  generations,  and  that  his  genius  will  be 
recognized  and  felt  throughout  the  civihzed  world. 

Does  not  the  distribution  of  natural  endowments,  thus 
symmetrical  and  mutually  self-compensating,  manifest  a 
presiding  Providence,  if  possible,  even  more  fully  than 
analogous  arrangements  in  the  outward  creation  ?  We 
here  see  that  the  principle  of  the  division  of  labor,  which 
bas  been  represented  as  the  great  industrial  device  of 
modern  times,  by  which  alone  skill  can  be  perfected  and 
its  highest  productiveness  insured,  is  distinctly  recognized 
by  the  Supreme  Being  in  the  order  and  economy  of  the 
creation,  so  that  in  this  regard  man  is  but  copying  the 
Divine  precedent  and  pattern.  You  will  remember  that 
in  my  last  Lecture  I  showed  you  how  the  highest  art 
constantly  resolves  itself  into  the  imitation  of  the  Creator. 
The  case  is  precisely  the  same  m  social  and  pohtical 
economy,  which,  when  not  false  and  mischievous,  is  httle 
else  than  the  application  —  often  unconscious  —  to  par- 
ticular communities  and  organizations  of  the  methods  of 


THE  PROVIDENCE   OF   GOD  IN  HUMAN  SOCIETY.        145 

the  Divine  providence,  so  that  we  might  reverently  em- 
ploy concerning  whatever  is  wise  and  salutary  m  the 
institutions  of  all  God's  human  children  the  words  in 
which  Jesus  characterizes  his  mu-acles :  "  The  Son  can 
do  notliing  of  hunself,  but  what  he  seeth  the  Father- do." 

But  while  as  an  economical  arrangement  tliis  distribu- 
tion of  talents  satisfies  the  taste  and  judgment,  certainly 
of  those  who  account  themselves  as  among  the  more 
favored,  it  needs  to  be  further  illustrated,  and  even  claims 
defence,  m  the  case  of  those  who  occuj^y  what  is  deemed 
the  lowest  place  in  the  scale  of  Divuie  allotments.  In  a 
former  Lectm-e  I  considered  the  condition  of  those  desti- 
tute of  moral  and  rehgious  privilege  ;  I  now  ask  you  to 
look  with  me  at  the  case  of  those  who,  m  the  estabhshed 
order  of  civilized  society,  would  be  termed  miprivileged, 
—  the  laborers,  the  proletaries,  the  many  who  seem 
doomed  to  incessant  toil  and  bm'den  for  the  luxury  of 
the  few.  If  they  are  by  virtue  of  then-  occupation  shiit 
out  from  the  benefits  and  blessmgs  which  should  apper- 
tain to  them  as  mteUectual  and  moral  beings,  if  they  are 
of  necessity  devoid  of  privilege,  then,  though  the  plan 
of  the  Divine  admiaistration  which  we  have  been  review- 
ing may  illustrate  the  wisdom,  it  throws  doubt  on  the 
love,  of  the  Creator.  But  if  we  find  that  they  are  ad- 
equately cared  for,  the  argument  for  a  Providence  no  less 
merciful  than  wise  remauis  mitouched.  Let  us  tiy  this 
issue. 

In  the  first  place,  labor  is  not  of  necessity  unfavorable 
to  mental  or  moral  development.  Even  in  its  most  com- 
plex foims  it  easily  becomes  so  much  a  matter  of  routuie 
as  to  leave  the  thoughts  jfree.  The  mhid  can  m  the 
humblest  sphere  find  ample  materials  for  reflection  and 


146  CHKISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION  OF  NATURE. 

means  of  improvement,  wliile  the  kindly  and  devout 
afiections  may  be  clierished,  and  all  the  essential  duties 
of  the  soul's  life  discharged,  in  a  position  however  obscure 
and  toilsome.  Vigorous  minds,  distinctly  cognizant  of 
everything  within  their  natm-al  range  of  knowledge,'  are 
as  often  and  as  symmetrically  formed  in  the  laborious 
walks  of  life,  as  m  those  styled  peculiarly  mtellectual. 
Both  in  England  and  in  America,  many  have  passed  from 
the  last  and  the  loom  to  conspicuous  places  in  hterature 
and  in  public  life,  by  virtue  of  mental  acmnen  and  vigor 
largely  developed  before  they  stinted  the  ftdl  measure  of 
their  daily  labor.  And  how  many  there  are,  that  never 
leave  the  work-bench  or  the  plough,  who  are  shrewd, 
sagacious,  endowed  with  sterhng  good-sense,  possessed 
of  large  practical  wisdom,  skihul  in  judging  of  character, 
weighuig  arguments,  and  testing  evidence  !  How  many 
too,  who  have  manifested  the  loftiest  moral  traits,  and 
from  whose  stores  of  ethical  and  rehgious  knowledge 
Socrates  and  Plato  would  have  deemed  themselves  privi- 
leged learners  !  What  greater  man,  in  that  wisdom  which 
adapts  means  to  ends,  in  that  saintly  wisdom  wliich  adapts 
the  choicest  means  to  the  noblest  ends,  has  the  present 
century  seen, .  than  John  Pounds,  the  cobbler  ?  He 
entered  on  his  life  of  unceasing  toil  with  much  less  than 
a  New  England  common-school  education.  He  never 
learned  to  make  a  shoe,  and  in  his  nearly  fourscore  years 
he  performed  as  large  an  amomit  of  minute  and  grovel- 
ling task-work  as  any  man  in  Great  Britain.  Yet  he 
fomid  time  and  mind  and  heart  to  rescue  fi-om  ruin,  and 
to  raise  to  liis  own  humble  level  in  social  life,  and  toward 
his  own  exalted  rank  in  the  moral  liierarchy,  several 
hundreds  of  orphaned  and  neglected  cliilcfren  about  the 
lanes   and  wharves  of  his  native  city,  and  to  wm  for 


THE  PROVIDENCE   OF   GOD   IN  HUMAN  SOCIETY.        147 

himself  an  enduring  name  among  the  first  philanthropists 
in  the  world's  annals. 

The  mention  of  John  Pounds  reminds  me  of  the  frater- 
nity of  St.  Crispin,  in  both  hemispheres,  which  has  almost 
vinchcated  for  itself  a  place  among  the  liberal  professions 
by  its  high  grade  of  general  intelKgence,  and  by  the  mmi- 
ber  of  eminent  men  who  have  issued  from  its  ranks,  fi'om 
Hans  Sachs,  whose  lyrics  were  among  the  gTeat  forces  of 
the  Protestant  Reformation,  to  om-  own  Wliittier,  whose 
place  in  the  foremost  rank  of  h\dng  poets  none  can  chal- 
lenge. Who  work  harder  than  the  shoemakers  of  Mas- 
sachusetts ?  Yet  in  what  class  of  men  is  there  more 
general  activity  of  intellect,  not  to  speak  of  the  numerous 
instances  in  which  the  irrepressible  force  of  genius  has 
elevated  members  of  their  brotherhood  to  the  highest 
eminence  at  the  bar,  in  the  pulpit,  in  the  counsels  of 
the  State  and  nation  ?     Surely  labor  is  not  unprivileged. 

But  though  a  life  of  incessant  labor  does  not  preclude 
the  education  of  the  higher  nature,  it  is  beginning  to  be 
admitted  on  all  hands  that  neither  does  the  order  of  Prov- 
idence requh'e,  nor  can  the  general  welfare  pennit,  such  a 
life  to  be  the  destiny  of  any  portion  of  om'  race.  Man  is 
overworked  as  regards  the  needs  of  humanity.  Excessive 
production  is  the  most  fruitftil  source  of  coimnercial  con- 
vulsions, financial  derangements,  and  of  penury  and  star- 
vation among  the  laboring  classes.  But  reserving  this 
point  for  future  discussion,  and  supposing  that  all  the  work 
that  is  done  is  needed,  it  is  performed  by  much  fewer 
laborers  than  ouo-ht  to  be  eno;ao;ed  in  it.  Vast  numbers 
properly  belonging  to  the  ranks  of  productive  industry 
forsake  them,  or  are  forced  out  of  them,  and  if  they  re- 
mamed,  they  would  greatly  chminish  the  amount  of  toil 
'per  capita.    There  are  multitudes  constantly  pressing  into 


148  CHPJSTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE, 

commercial  life,  without  talent  or  education  for  business, 
with  no  possibihty  of  success,  without  even  elbow-room  in 
the  crowd  of  competitors.  Then  there  are  the  wasteful 
armies  and  navies  of  the  Old  World  and  the  New,  — 
generally  worse  than  useless,^  —  converting  then  myriads 
of  potential  producers  into  unproductive  consumers. 

Consider  also  how  large  a  proportion  of  the  products  of 
the  earth  is  ]3erverted  from  nourishment  into  poison.  An 
immense  percentage  of  the  sugar  and  gram  crops  goes 
into  market  only  in  the  fonn  of  alcohohc  Hquors,  which 
in  small  part  are  made  availing  for  medicmal  and  indus- 
trial uses,  but  for  the  most  part  are  worse  than  wasted, 
and  are  the  most  potent  of  all  agencies  in  reducmg  the 
working  force  of  hmnanity. 

With  these  allowances  for  laborers  abstracted  and  labor 
wasted,  the  handcraft  of  Christendom,  when  in  frill  em- 
ploy, gluts  every  market,  and  heaps  up  masses  of  com- 
modities of  every  kind  in  the  hands  of  dealers.  Then 
prices  fall  ruinously  low,  manufactories  suspend  opera- 
tions, farmers  till  less  land,  laborers  are  thrown  out  of 
employment  by  the  thousand,  and  industry  suffers  a 
paralysis,  till  the  supply  is  reduced,  and  a  fresh  demand 
raises  prices  and  stunulates  enterprise  anew.  All  tliis 
indicates  that,  with  the  industrial  machmery  m  ftiU  opera- 
tion, more  work  is  done  than  man  needs  to  have  done. 

'  1  The  -writer  will  not  of  course  be  understood  as  applying  the  epithet  "  worse 
than  useless"  to  the  forces  now  or  at  any  time  employed  in  protecting  the 
fundamental  law  and  the  essential  institutions  of  the  state,  in  guarding  its 
frontiers  from  actual  peril,  or  in  preventing  depredations  upon  its  commerce 
on  the  seas.  But  in  time  of  peace,  a  very  large  portion  of  the  military  and 
naval  force  in  commission  and  pay  in  the  various  countries  of  Christendom 
not  only  serves  no  immediate  purpose  of  defence  or  protection,  but  is  not  even 
in  readiness  for  such  service,  an  army  or  navy  at  the  commencement  of  a  war 
always  evincing  full  as  much  need  of  being  purged  of  inefficient  officers  and 
men,  as  of  new  enlistments. 


THE  PROVIDENCE   OF   GOD  IN  HUMAN  SOCIETY.       149 

If,  wlien  men  work  twelve  or  fourteen  hours  a  day,  a 
large  proportion  of  the  laborers  must  lie  idle  one  year 
out  of  every  four  or  five,  to  keep  the  supply  of  the  com- 
modities within  reach  of  the  demand,  the  same  end  would 
be  more  conveniently  brought  about  by  then'  working  but 
nine  or  ten  hours  a  day,  and  having  constant  employment. 
Nor  could  the  laborer  lose,  nay,  he  would  rather  gain,  in 
wages  by  the  general  shortening  of  liis  day's  work.  His 
wages  are  not  governed  by  the  value  he  creates ;  for  labor 
creates  all  value,  pays  all  income  and  revenue.  Every 
dollar  of  the  millionnau-e's  dividends  is  ploughed  for,  and 
delved  for,  and  hammered  for.  The  entu-e  capital  of  the 
community,  in  order  to  be  productive,  must  pass  through 
the  various  channels  of  handcraft.  The  laborer's  share 
of  what  he  earns  depends,  on  the  one  hand,  on  his  own 
intelligence,  self-respect,  moral  worth,  and  appreciation 
of  the  comforts  and  refinements  of  civilized  life,  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  on  his  employer's  sense  of  justice.  If  he 
toil  unremittingly,  and  have  no  space  for  the  culture  of 
the  higher  traits  of  mind  and  character,  he  will  be  com- 
pensated on  the  lowest  scale  of  his  absolute  necessity; 
for  he  Avill  be  too  ignorant,  thriftless,  and  reckless  to  claim 
more,  and  he  will  not  command  sufficient  respect  to  have 
more  awarded  to  him.  But  if  by  a  less  amount  of  toil  he 
yet  produce  his  fair  quota  toward  a  supply  of  the.  wants 
of  the  commimity,  he  can,  by  the  cultivation  of  mind  and 
heart,  place  himself  on  the  same  moral  level  with  his  em- 
ployer, —  his  demands  will  rise  with  his  conscious  needs, 
his  wages  will  grow  with  the  growth  of  his  substantial 
claims  to  respect  and  deference,  and  he  will  be  allowed 
his  just  dividend  of  the  annual  revenue  of  his  labor ;  while 
the  enterprise  that  employs,  the  skill  that  directs,  and  the 
capital  that  sustains  his  industry  will  receive  then'  equita- 
ble proportion,  and  no  more. 


150  CHEISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF   NATURE. 

The  working  of  this  principle  has  been  tested  by  the 
general  establishment  of  the  ten-hour  system  in  some 
departments  of  industry.  The  operatives  in  these  de- 
partments are  better  paid  than  before;  employers  have 
felt  no  injustice;  and  in  the  increased  intelligence  and 
respectability  of  the  employed,  and  in  the  diminished 
tendency  to  overworkuig  at  some  periods,  and  to  a  con- 
sequent glut  of  the  labor-market  at  frequent  intervals, 
the  relations  of  capital  and  industiy,  and  of  demand  and 
supply,  have  become  more  stable,  and  approached  a  more 
equable  adjustment.  The  operation  of  this  same  principle 
must  soon  extend  itself  to  all  departments  of  industiy. 
It  cannot  be  hastened  by  agitation  or  by  factious  combi- 
nation, which  only  excites  resistance  and  arrays  pubhc 
opinion  on  the  wrong  side.  It  will  gradually  estabhsh 
itself  with  the  recognition  of  somid  views  of  social  econ- 
omy, of  the  republican  doctrine  of  equal  rights,  and  of 
mutual  justice  between  man  and  man.  The  time  cannot 
be  far  distant  when,  in  New  England  at  least,  the  disas- 
trous system  of  overworking  and  overproduction  will  be 
permanently  set  aside,  and  the  hours  and  amount  of  regu- 
lar labor  will  be  so  adjusted  to  the  actual  needs  of  home 
and  foreign  markets,  as  to  prevent  the  spasms  of  con- 
suming toil  and  intervals  of  hungiy  idleness  which  have 
hitherto  alternated  in  the  history  of  the  industrial  world. 

We  are  at  present  concerned  with  the  fundamental 
laws  of  the  Di^dne  Providence,  not  with  artificial  ar- 
rangements in  contravention  of  those  laws.  I  have 
shown  you  that  one  of  those  laws  is,  that  much  less 
than  the  incessant  toil  of  the  laboring  classes  will  pro- 
duce all  that  man  requires  for  subsistence,  comfort,  and 
luxury.  Consequently,  Providence  has  indicated  for  the 
laborer   ample  season  for  relaxation  and   improvement. 


THE  PROVIDENCE   OF   GOD  IN  HUMAN  SOCIETY.       151 

In  a  state  of  society  conformed  to  its  essential  laws,  no 
day  would  pass  for  aay  member  of  the  community  in  ex- 
hausting toil,  —  every  day  would  have  its  leisui'e  hours 
for  domestic  enjoyment,  for  the  culture  of  the  mental 
powers,  and  for  the  indulgence  of  refined  tastes.  Thus, 
by  the  universal  diffusion  of  the  elevating  influences  of 
leisure  and  prosperity,  the  artificial  distinctions  of  society 
would  fall  away;  all  occupations  would  become  hberal 
professions;  the  man  in  every  case  would  ennoble  liis 
calling  and  reflect  honor  upon  it;  and  all  the  essential 
offices  of  liie  would  be  discharged  without  menial  or 
degrading  associations  attaching  themselves  to  any,  be- 
cause he  who  performed  even  the  humblest  function, 
instead  of  being  wholly  merged  in  it,  would  have  exist- 
ence and  time,  a  status^  an  intellectual,  moral,  and  social 
life,  independent  of  it. 

In  even  pace  with  this  tendency  toward  a  high  gen- 
eral level  of  social  hfe,  the  civilized  world  must  approach 
neai-er  an  equal  distribution  of  material  wealth.  Not  only 
will  capital  earn  less  and  labor  more^  but  with  the  general 
diffusion  of  intelligence  and  the  enhanced  compensation 
of  labor  the  number  of  small  capitalists  will  be  constantly 
on  the  increase,  and  the  miion  of  capital  and  labor  vnW. 
become  general.  To  be  sure,  there  must  always  be  con- 
siderable accumulations  of  capital.  They  are  demanded 
for  the  general  good,  as  safety-fimds  and  movement-fluids. 
The  surface  of  society  must  always  be  diversified.  But 
there  is  no  need  of  Alpine  scenery,  —  riches  piled  moun- 
tam  liigh,  with  sunless  and  baiTcn  ravines  in  the  chasms. 
Far  better  is  it  that  hill  and  valley  should  alike  He  un- 
der the  common  sunlight,  and  equally  wave  with  harvest 
wealth. 

There  is  yet  one   point  more  with  reference  to  the 


152  CHEISTIAOTTY  THE  RELIGION  OF  NATURE. 

elevation  of  labor,  which  I  want  to  illustrate.  I  ex- 
hibited to  yoTi  in  my  last  Lecture  the  Divine  Providence 
in  Art.  Of  tliis  providence  the  chief  revenue  accrues  to 
the  laborer.  Invention,  machinery,  steam,  magnetism, 
all  are  especially  for  his  emolument.  Without  them,  the 
heu's  of  great  names  and  ancestral  acres  would  hve  in 
rude  plenty  and  barbaric  splendor,  would  lack  nothmg 
which  they  could  appreciate,  and  by  their  monopoly  of 
land  —  the  only  source  of  wealth  —  would  keep  the 
labonng  classes  in  a  dependent  and  needy  serfdom. 
But  machinery  creates  a  wealth  that  cannot  be  monop- 
ohzed.  A  labor-saving  invention  confers  a  pennanent 
estate  or  settles  an  annual  revenue  on  each  of  the 
laborers  of  the  country  where  it  is  used,  and  even  of 
the  civilized  world.  Take,  for  mstance,  an  invention  by 
which  two  men  can  do  the  work  which  ten  used  to  do, 
and  suppose  it  applied  to  a  department  of  labor  in  which 
ten  thousand  men  have  been  employed.  It  is  manifest 
that  the  labor  of  eight  thousand  men  can  be  dispensed 
with,  and  the  amount  of  production  remain  the  same  as 
before.  Now  if  these  eio-ht  thousand  men  were  dismissed 
sununanly  from  employment,  the  result  would  be  a  bur- 
den, and  not  a  blessing,  to  the  commmiity.  But  this  is 
not  the  case.  In  aU  probability  they  ^ill  remam  m  the 
business,  and  aid  in  producing  five  times  as  much  of  the 
commodity  as  was  produced  before;  for,  by  dispensing 
with  four  fifths  of  the  labor,  the  commodity  is  cheapened 
to  two  thirds,  one  half,  or  even  one  thu'd  of  its  former 
price,  and  consequently  many  can  afford  to  use  it  who 
never  used  it  before,  and  many  mtli  whom  it  was  before 
a  luxury  or  a  rarity  can  now  make  free  and  common  use 
of  it.  Thus  the  products  of  the  labor  of  these  eight 
thousand  men,  being  four  times  as  much  of  the   com- 


THE  PROVIDENCE   OF   GOD   IN  HUMAN   SOCIETY.        153 

modlty  ill  question  as  was  ^previously  manufactured,  are 
thro^vn  into  the  cheap  market,  cliiefly  for  the  benefit  of 
the  laboring  classes,  —  of  men  who  must  wait  till  a  com- 
modity is  clieap,  in  order  to  pui'chase  it  freely,  if  at  all. 
If  it  be  cotton  cloth  or  caHco,  they  can  dress  their  famihes 
with  a  neatness  and  comfort  not  before  attainable.  If  it 
be  glass  or  porcelam,  they  can  gi'atify  their  taste  in  their 
table  fiu-niture.  If  it  be  paper,  they  can  indulge  them- 
selves and  their  children  with  an  occasional  new  book  or 
a  daily  journal.  If  it  be  an  article  not  unproductively 
consumed,  but  used  for  the  production  of  other  goods, 
they  derive  the  same  advantage  in  the  cheaper  rate  at 
which  those  goods  are  procured.  If  the  commodity  be 
one  adapted  to  general  use,  probably  not  only  the  eight 
thousand  will  remain  in  the  manufacture,  but  the  demand 
wWl  grow  so  fast  as  to  create  a  considerable  indrafb  fi-om 
the  labor-mai'ket  at  lai'ge,  and  thus  to  enhance  in  some 
measure  the  average  rate  of  wages.  And  let  it  be  borne 
in  mind  that  the  mcreased  consumption  is,  ahnost  aU  of  it, 
by  the  poorer  classes,  —  by  the  laborers.  Rich  men  used 
as  much  as  they  wanted  of  the  commodity  thus  multipHed, 
at  the  higher  prices  ;  the  mvention  benefits  those  who 
could  not  previously  afford  to  pui'chase  it. 

I  have  said  that  in  this  supposed  case  the  labor  of  the 
eight  thousand  men  is  a  gift  of  Providence  to  the  laboring 
portion  of  the  community.  But  there  are  two  forais  in 
which  they  may  take  the  gifi:.  They  may  take  it  in  goods, 
as  I  have  already  sho"\vn  you,  or  they  may  talve  it  in  time, 
by  the  absoi-ption  of  the  disengaged  eight  thousand  into 
the  general  mass  of  laborers,  the  same  amount  of  produc- 
tion being  accomplished  as  before,  but  by  fewer  hours  of 
labor  on  the  part  of  each  operative  of  every  class.  The 
gift  has  in  fact  been  accepted  in  both  forais ;  thus  far,  how 
7* 


154  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION  OF  NATURE. 

ever,  principally  in  the  former,  while  in  coming  genera- 
tions it  will  no  doubt  be  oftener  welcomed  in  the  latter. 
It  has  been  hitherto  taken  cliiefly  m  goods,  because  so 
many  desirable  articles  of  comfort  and  enjoyment  have 
been  made  easily  accessible  and  temptingly  cheap.  The 
advance  in  the  condition  of  the  laboring  classes  within  half 
a  century  is  almost  fabulous.  The  man  who  miites  indus- 
try with  a  moderate  degi'ee  of  skill  lacks  hardly  anything 
that  could  make  him  happier.  As  to  the  essentials  of 
comfort,  the  levelling  upward,  except  among  the  mdolent, 
thriftless,  and  vicious,  has  reached  a  higher  grade  than 
Utopians  would  have  dreamed  two  or  three  generations 
ago.  And  now  that  laborers  have  received,  in  goods, 
nearly  as  much  of  the  revenue  which  comes  to  them  from 
machinery  as  they  desire  to  receive  in  that  form,  they  are 
turning  their  attention  to  the  matter  of  time,  and  claim- 
ing a  part  of  theii'  dividend  in  hours,  —  in  leism'e  to  enjoy 
the  homes  that  have  been  made  so  comfortable,  the  added 
measure  of  goods  that  has  fallen  to  their  mheritance.  In- 
vention and  macliinery,  having  been  first  made  efficient 
in  multiplying  comforts  and  luxuries,  will  now  go  on  to 
accomplish  their  mission  in  emancipating  the  laborer  fr-om 
continuous  toil,  by  enabluig  the  laboring  force  of  the 
"world  to  do  all  the  world's  Avork  witlmi  houi's  that  shall 
impose  no  heavy  burden  or  depressing  weamiess,  and 
shall  leave  the  paths  of  higher  cultui'e  and  superior  privi- 
lege as  fr-eely  open  to  those  who  are  distmctively  workers, 
as  to  those  who  dignify  their  lives  by  the  name  of  some 
hberal  profession. 

I  have  thus  sho^vn  you,  with  reference  to  those  who,  in 
our  social  system,  seem  to  have  the  least  of  privilege,  — 
first,  that,  in  the  order  of  Providence,  the  time  spent  in 
labor  is  not  lost  to  higher  purposes  ;  secondly,  that  more 


TBE  PROVIDENCE   OF   GOD  IN  HUMAN  SOCIETY.       155 

work  is  now  done,  when  industrial  agencies  are  in  full 
operation,  than  the  race  needs ;  and,  thirdly,  that,  in  the 
progress  of  inventive  art,  there  is  ample  provision  for  the 
material  comfort,  the  abundant  leisui'e,  and  the  high  men- 
tal, moral,  and  spiritual  culture  of  the  laborers,  —  all 
which,  be  it  remembered,  is  not  the  growth  of  man's 
pliilanthropy  (for  man  has  done  next  to  nothing  on  a 
large  scale  for  his  fellow-man),  but  the  development  of 
the  counsels  of  Him,  of  whom  revelation  tells  us  that  his 
tender  mercies  are  over  all  his  works,  and  his  loving- 
kindness  unto  all  the  children  of  men. 


LECTURE    VIII. 

THE  HOLINESS   OF   GOD.  —  GOD  IN   CHRIST, 

In  a  previous  Lecture  I  named  goodness  and  holiness 
as  the  two  principal  aspects  of  the  Divine  character  pre- 
sented by  Clnistianity.  I  have  thus  far  spoken  of  the 
first  of  these  only,  as  confirmed  and  illustrated  by  the 
rehgion  of  nature.  I  now  ask  your  attention  to  the  sec- 
ond, which  will  occupy  the  earher  portion  of  the  present 
hour. 

Holiness  primarily  denotes  wholeness,  and,  as  apphed  to 
character,  it  indicates  perfect  purity,  any  lack  of  pm-ity 
being  a  defect,  and  thus  detractuig  fi'om  the  wholeness  of 
character.  The  natural  and  necessary  manifestation  of 
hohness  in  God  is  a  supreme  reference  to  moral  distinc- 
tions in  the  structure  and  government  of  the  universe. 
Let  us  see  how  far  it  is  so  manifested  as  to  claim  for  it  a 
place  among  the  truths  of  natural  rehgion. 

I.  It  is  manifested  in  the  human  conscience.  What  is 
conscience  ?  It  is  the  internal  perception  corresponding 
to  the  word  ought,  which  denotes  oived  or  obligated.  And 
why  ought  I  to  do  this  or  that  ?  Because  it  is  intrmsi- 
cally  right,  in  accordance  with  the  nature  of  tlungs,  in 
harmony  with  an  eternal  law  wliich  I  can  neither  set 
aside  nor  evade.  This  sense  of  obhgation,  with  the  cor- 
relative sense  of  right,  is  native,  intuitive.  It  exists  in 
the  very  dawn  of  the  moral  nature.  We  cannot  re- 
member the  time  when  we  had  it  not.     We  trace  it  in 


THE  HOLINESS   OF   GOD.  157 

the  infant  as  early  as  we  can  trace  anything  beyond  sen- 
sation.^ It  is  not  the  result  of  education,  but  the  basis  of 
education.  The  parent  does  not  awaken  it,  but  appeals 
to  it  in  the  earliest  forms  and  acts  of  moral  disciphne.  It 
can  no  more  be  expelled  or  escaped  from,  than  can  the 
consciousness  of  existence. 

Conscience   is  unerring.      The    conviction  I  ought  is 
never  felt  with  reference  to  anything  but  that  which  is 
intrinsically,  necessarHy,  eternally  right.     There  are,  in- 
deed, many  cases  of  conscientious  wrong-doing ;  but  how  ? 
Not  through  a  perverted  sense  of  right,  but  through  im- 
perfect knowledge  or  defective  judgment  as  to  the  proper 
means  of  actualizing  ihQ  sense  of  right.     In  conscientious 
wrong-domg  the  animus  of  the  act  is  right ;   the  thing 
done  is  what  in  the  abstract  ought  to  be  done  ;  there  is 
merely  a  mistake  as  to  the  method  in  which  the  honest, 
benevolent,  or  devout  pm^^ose  may  be  fitly  earned  into 
effect,  that  is,  a  mistake,  not  as  to  one's  own  obhgation, 
but  as  to  beings,  objects,  and  relations  external  to  him- 
self    Thus  the  conscientious  persecutor  of  those  whom 
he  deems  heretics  is  right  in  believing  that  he  ought  to 
sacrifice  every  inferior  consideration  to  the  reverence  and 
worship  of  God ;  wrong  only  in  supposing  that  the  prop- 
erty, hberty,  and  lives  of  his  feUow-citizens  are  his  for 
the  purpose  of  sacrifice.     Thus,  also,  the  absurdities  and 
extravagances  of  fimaticism  are  expressions  of  that  loy- 
alty to  God  in  which  all  moral  good  has  its  soui'ce  and  its 
end ;  the  mistake  is  solely  one  of  taste  and  judgment,  as 
to  the  exterior  becomingness  and  utility  of  certain  modes 
of  expressing  the  loyalty  of  the  heart,  — modes  in  them- 
selves innocent,  and  which  would  be  as  becoming  and 
usefrd  as  any  other  modes,  were  they  not  inconsistent 
with  conventional  propriety.     Conscience  never  sanctions 


158  CHRISTIANITY    THE   RELIGION   OF   NATURE. 

a  wrong  disposition^  motive,  or  feeling ;  but  its  province 
lies  wliolly  witliin,  —  the  mode  in  which  it  shall  embody 
itself  is  a  subject  for  legislation,  human  or  Divine.  When 
the  law  prescribes  only  outward  acts  in  themselves  right 
or  indifferent,  conscience  takes  the  law  as  she  finds  it. 
But  when  legislation  lays  sacrilegious  hands  on  the  ark 
of  God  in  the  soul,  invades  the  realm  of  conscience,  com- 
mands what  she  forbids,  or  forbids  what  she  commands, 
the  law  is  paralyzed  before  the  divine  majesty  of  right. 
It  may  make  submissive  martyrs,  whose  blood  shall  cry- 
out  of  the  ground  for  its  repeal ;  but  it  can  no  more  de- 
pose conscience  from  her  judgment-seat  than  it  can  usurp 
the  throne  of  the  universe. 

I  have  said  that  the  office  of  conscience  is  involved  in 
the  word  ought,  —  owed.  But  the  ought  must  have  its  ob- 
ject. It  imphes  a  double  personality,  —  the  person  owing, 
and  the  person  to  whom  the  obligation  is  due.  It  has  not 
a  merely  human  reference  ;  for  it  adlieres  to  portions  of 
our  lives  in  which  we  can  have  no  human  creditor,  in 
which  our  fellow-beings  have  no  interest,  —  to  thoughts 
and  feelings  which  they  cannot  even  know.  When  I  say 
I  ought,  I  confess  myself  amenable  to  God ;  I  acknowl- 
edge that  I  owe  to  him  thoughts,  words,  and  deeds  con- 
formed to  his  will,  deserving  his  approval,  nay,  more, 
accordant  with  his  nature  ;  for  his  will  must  be  the  ex- 
pression of  his  nature,  and  if  he  wills  pmity,  truth,  and 
love,  it  must  be  because  he  is  stamlessly  pm^e,  eternally 
true,  infinitely  good. 

Still  ftirther,  conscience  is  not  only  the  reflection  of  the 
Divine  nature,  —  it  is,  not  in  metaphor,  but  in  literal  fact, 
the  God  withui.  Man  constantly  errs  ;  conscience  is  in- 
fallible. 'Man  changes  from  youth  to  age,  from  genera- 
tion to  generation  ;  conscience  is  unchangeable.     Man  is 


THE  HOLINESS   OF   GOD.  159 

tempted ;  conscience  knows  no  bribe.  Man  may  make 
himself  utterly  vile  ;  but  in  the  entire  wreck  and  iTiin  of 
his  nature  conscience  is  as  loyal  to  the  right  in  plying  its 
scourge  of  scorpions,  as  when  it  echoes  the  plaudit  of  a 
justifyuig  God  on  a  life  nobly  spent  or  nobly  sacrificed. 

God  is  everywhere.  He  is  present  in  inanimate  nature 
in  those  laws  which  are  his  unceasing  fiat.  He  is  present 
with  the  brute  creation  in  instinct,  through  whose  impulse 
the  unreasoning  races  fulfil  his  bidding.  He  is  present 
with  men  in  conscience.  And  as  without  his  presence  in 
natm-e  the  forms  of  the  visible  creation  would  collapse 
and  perish ;  as  without  his  presence  in  instinct  the  tribes 
of  air,  land,  and  sea  would  rush  to  ruin  ;  so  without  his 
presence  in  conscience  the  bonds  of  society  would  be 
sundered,  government  would  be  impossible,  natm^al  affec- 
tion would  be  turned  to  hatred,  and  our  whole  race  would 
be  blended  in  a  tumultuous  warfare  of  mutual  destruc- 
tion. 

In  saying  this,  I  am  aware  that  I  ascribe  to  conscience 
a  degree  of  influence  over  society  as  it  now  is,  which  is 
not  generally  recognized.  But  with  all  the  wrong-doing 
that  there  is  among  men,  the  overwhelming  majority  of 
the  individual  acts  perforaied  in  the  world  are  not  only 
right  and  good,  but  strictly  conscientious  acts  ;  and  even 
the  very  worst  men  are  generally  conscientious,  except  as 
to  those  particulars  of  conduct  in  which  their  ruling  appe- 
tite or  passion  is  immediately  concerned.  Go  as  low  as  you 
will  in  the  scale  of  moral  turpitude,  you  still  do  not  find 
utter  indifference  to  moral  distinctions.  I  doubt  whether 
there  lives  a  sane  man  who,  when  selfish  motives  are 
equally  balanced  between  the  right  and  the  wrong,  would 
not  choose  the  right,  though  he  might  not  know  why,  — 
by  an  inward  movement  closely  analogous  to  that  wliich 


160  CHKISTIANITY  THE  KELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

leads  the  bimte  to  elect  wholesome  and  to  shun  unwhole- 
some food.  It  is  on  the  ground  of  tliis  innate  and  never 
inactive  sense  of  right  that,  if  you  know  a  bad  man,  you 
may  calculate  the  veins  in  which  liis  vicious  propensities 
will  iim;  and  can  generally  trust  him  m  every  other  di- 
rection. 

In  fine,  a  large  proportion  of  the  trust  which  we  think 
we  repose  in  one  another,  is  not  trust  in  man,  but  tinist  m 
God  as  he  is  present  mth  man  in  the  indestmctible  con- 
science. The  man  who  would  rob  you  if  he  met  you  in 
a  secluded  spot,  is  more  likely  than  not  to  show  you 
gi'atuitous  kuidness,  if  the  opportmiity  of  gratifying  liis 
cupidity  be  wanting.  You  are  on  a  perplexuig  jomiiey, 
and,  without  thought  of  his  moral  condition,  you  confi- 
dently ask  mformation  of  the  first  man  you  meet.  He 
may  be  a  person  of  the  most  depraved  character,  yet,  if 
he  has  no  motive  for  misleading  you,  you  know  that  you 
can  depend  on  what  he  tells  you.  You  are  ill  among 
strangers,  and  very  probably  you  will  have  for  your  un- 
asked and  most  assiduous  attendants  and  helpers  persons 
who  in  certain  ways  are  the  slaves  of  evil  appetites  or 
passions.  In  truth,  men  never  sin  untempted,  and  they 
generally  do  right  and  good  when  there  is  no  selfish  mo- 
tive to  e^dl. 

Nay,  more.  You  often  witness  great  vii'tues  in  connec- 
tion with  oToss  defects  and  faults,  —  smcere  patriotism 
where  the  private  morality  bears  a  low  stamp,  private  ex- 
cellence combined  with  pohtical  profligacy,  honesty  m  the 
sensuahst,  benevolence  among  the  intemperate,  domestic 
fidelity  among  those  whose  uprightness  in  busmess  rela- 
tions you  cannot  trust.  To  be  sure,  the  character  which 
in  any  one  respect  is  faulty  is  weaker  at  other  points  than 
if  it  were  without  stam,  —  is  more  hable  to  yield  to  new 


THE  HOLINESS   OF   GOD.  161 

forms  of  temptation ;  yet,  imder  ordiiiaiy  circimistances, 
a  man  who  is,  in  the  conmion  plirase,  destitute  of  prin- 
ciple, may  be  relied  on  for  the  continued  performance  of 
the  good  which  he  has  been  accustomed  to  do,  no  less  than 
he  may  be  expected  still  to  yield,  whenever  occasion  pre- 
sents itself,  to  his  easily-besettmg  frailties  and  sins.  And 
thus,  as  I  have  said,  the  overwhelmmg  majority  of  the 
acts  performed  are  right  and  good,  salutary  and  lielpM. 

But  here  let  me  make  a  most  emphatic  distmction.  I 
cannot  regard  this  spontaneous  goodness  as  worthy  of 
moral  approbation,  which  he  alone  deserves  who  can  resist 
temptation  and  resolutely  choose  the  right,  when  there 
are  strong  motives  aiTayed  on  the  opposite  side ;  who  can 
say  with  the  ancient  patriai'ch,  "  Till  I  die,  I  will  not 
remove  my  integrity  from  me."  But  the  spontaneous 
activity  of  conscience,  where  there  is  no  distinct  exercise 
of  moral  choice,  takes  place  mider  the  operation  of  a 
Divine  law  analogous  to  the  all-embracing  laws  of  the 
material  miiverse.  The  vast  amomit  of  practical  goodness 
that  coexists  with  non-religion,  irrehgion,  and  specific 
forms  of  vice,  should  be  regarded  in  the  same  Hght  in 
which  we  view  the  order  and  hannony  of  natm-e,  not 
with  praise  to  the  creature,  but  with  adoration  to  the  Cre- 
ator, Sustainer,  and  Preserver.  It  is  the  mode  in  wliich 
He  holds  the  race  together,  that  successive  generations 
may  have  the  opportunity  of  moral  choice,  that  the  reign 
of  true  virtue  may  be  progressively  established,  that  mdi- 
vidual  excellence  may  be  multiplied  and  augmented  from 
age  to  age,  and  that  in  the  yet  distant  era  of  miiversal 
righteousness  the  earth  may  be  inhabited  by  those  who 
shall  do  right,  with  the  free  purpose  and  ftdl  energy  of 
mind,  heart,  and  soul. 

A^  regards  the  subject  now  in  hand,  conscience,  in  its 


162  CHEISTUNITY   THE   RELIGION   OF   NATURE. 

rectitude,  puritj,  and  holiness,  is  our  witness  of  the  recti- 
tude, pimty,  and  holiness  of  Him  who  tlius  maintains 
his  presence  with  our  race,  and  builds  the  shrme  of  his 
indwelhng  in  every  soul  of  man. 

II.  The  Divme  holiness  is,  secondly,  manifested  m  the 
structure  and  the  course  of  the  outward  universe,  so  far  as 
they  favor  and  execute  the  laws  of  right  which  conscience 
recognizes.  It  was  said  by  the  Psahnist,  "  The  samts 
shall  inherit  the  earth,"  and  he  need  not  have  used  the 
iutuL-e ;  the  saints  do  inherit  it,  reap  its  revenue,  enjoy 
its  benefits.  Leavmg  the  life  to  come  out  of  the  accomit, 
the  good  man,  however  contracted  liis  nominal  possessions 
may  be,  makes  more  and  gets  more  out  of  tliis  world  than 
any  amplitude  of  wealth  or  loftiness  of  station  can  give 
the  bad  man.  From  the  minunum  of  outward  means  of 
enjo}Tnent  he  extracts  the  maximum  of  enjoyment. 

All  vice,  all  sin,  is  suicidal.  Sensuahty  in  eveiy  form 
detracts  even  from  the  sum  of  merely  physical  gratifica- 
tion. At  the  outset  of  a  com'se  of  sensual  indulgence 
the  pleasm-e  is  intense ;  but  at  a  veiy  early  period  the 
capacity  of  enjoyment  wanes,  and  then  utterly  ceases, 
while  the  morbid  craving  grows,  even  under  the  con- 
sciousness of  added  miseiy,  with  eveiy  new  gratification. 
I  have  repeatedly  interrogated  the  self-consciousness  ot 
intemperate  persons,  reformed  and  unreformed,  and  I  feel 
warranted  in  saying  that  all  enjoyment  from  strong  diink 
ceases  before  the  stage  of  habitual  di'unkenness  is  reached, 
and  that  thenceforth,  between  the  craving  and  the  satisfy- 
in  o;  of  the  tjT-ant  appetite  there  is  hai'dly  a  difference  in 
the  degree,  but  only  an  alternation  in  the  fonn  of  suffer- 
ing. Hiunan  cruelty  never  invented  torture  to  be  com- 
pared with  that  which  the  sensualist  incurs.  His  body 
becomes  the  soul's  dungeon,  —  its  walls  constantly  thick- 


THE  HOLINESS   OF   GOD.  163 

ening  and  closing  up  so  as  to  shut  all  the  wonted  entrances 
of  joy.  His  senses,  deadened  on  the  side  of  pleasure,  no 
longer  avenues  of  beauty  or  harmony,  or  even  of  gratify- 
ing perfumes  or  flavors,  are  left  still  open  mlets  of  pain. 

Equally  fatal  are  all  social  vices  to  individual  happiness. 
Fraud  reacts  on  the  deceiver.  Avarice  impoverishes  the 
life  faster  than  it  increases  the  wealth.  The  resentful 
and  malevolent  passions  can  harm  no  one  so  much  as  him 
who  harbors  them.  On  the  other  hand,  every  generous 
affection  and  noble  act  enlarges  the  domain  of  being, 
enriches  and  gladdens  the  soul,  and  seldom  fails  to  ren- 
der the  outward  condition  more  ample  as  to  the  means 
of  happiness. 

In  like  manner,  reverence  and  devotion,  loyalty  to  the 
Divine  will,  the  rehgious  consecration  of  the  life,  in  fine, 
all  the  traits  and  habits  that  belong  to  personal  piety,  are 
adapted  to  promote  prosperity,  honor,  domestic  peace, 
social  consideration,  and  the  enjoyment  of  the  whole  out- 
ward world ;  while  he  who  neglects  or  scorns  his  duty  to 
God  forfeits  unnumbered  consolations,  blessings,  and  hopes, 
and  incui's  positive  and  unmixed  suffering  from  experiences 
which  to  the  religious  man  are  means  of  inward  growth 
and  fomitains  of  a  purer  joy  than  he  knew  before. 

The  dependence  of  happiness  on  character  is  fully  veri- 
fied in  every  lengthened  life.  Could  you  convene  a  senate 
of  old  men  of  every  style  of  character,  fi-om  the  hoary 
profligate  to  the  aged  saint,  and  could  each  be  compelled 
to  declare  the  convictions  which  had  been  forced  upon 
him  by  his  life-experience,  there  would  not  be  a  shade  of 
discrepancy  in  their  testimony  as  to  the  dependence  of 
what  they  had  enjoyed  or  sufiered  on  what  they  had  been ; 
while  their  utterances  would  mn  through  the  whole  dia- 
tonic scale,  fi'om  the  wailuig  nunor  key  of  the  soul  loatliing 


164  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OP  NATURE. 

the  past  and  dreading  the  future,  unfit  to  hve  and  afraid 
to  die,  to  the  jubilant  swan-note  of  him  who  looks  back 
on  a  consecrated  life,  and  reaches  for  the  crown  and  palm 
and  harp  of  his  transfiguration.  The  proverbs  of  all 
nations,  which  are  the  condensed  experience  of  mankmd, 
are  fiill  of  this  tmth.  Earthly  and  earth-hmited,  —  mere 
prudential  maxims  as  they  seem,  —  they  almost  all  recog- 
nize the  identity  of  happmess  with  right  hving,  and  m'ge 
motives  of  expediency  m  behalf  of  the  very  same  virtues 
to  which  revelation  annexes  the  hope  full  of  immortahty. 
Now  if  the  world  and  the  mevitable  com^se  of  human 
life  are  so  adjusted  by  the  Supreme  Providence  as  thus 
to  favor  goodness  and  to  make  the  way  of  transgressors 
hard,  it  must  needs  be  that  He  who  created  the  world 
and  who  orders  hmnan  affaks  is  liimself  the  impersonation 
of  the  law  embodied  in  liis  works  and  their  administration, 
—  the  law  of  truth,  purity,  and  love.  Thus  the  hohness 
of  God,  affirmed  by  revelation,  is  verified  equally  by  the 
hmnan  conscience  and  by  the  whole  economy  of  natm^e 
and  of  life. 

Christianity  not  only  declares  the  Divine  goodness  and 
holiness,  wliich  are  verified,  as  we  have  seen,  by  the  re- 
ligion of  natm-e.  It  has  for  its  central  personage  a  being 
who  professes  to  be  more  than  a  revealer  of  truth,  —  who 
claims  to  be  received  as  standing  in  a  peculiar  relation  to 
God  and  to  hmnanity,  as  the  Mediator  between  God  and 
man,  as  the  representative  of  the  Di^dne  person,  as  a  fault- 
less model  for  the  imitation  of  the  race.  Let  us  see  what 
natm-al  religion  says  to  these  claims. 

1.  Is  the  mediatorial  office  which  the  Scriptm-es  attribute 
to  Jesus  Christ  mtrinsically  probable  ?  Here  we  encounter 
the  prevalent  natm^ahsm  of  om'  time,  which  asks,  proudly 


GOD   IN    CHRIST.  165 

and  scornfully,  ''  Why  sliould  I  go  to  God  througli  a  me- 
diator, and  not  rather  avail  myself  of  a  child's  right  to 
look  dh-ectly  into  the  Father's  face,  and  cast  myself,  with- 
out pledge,  promise,  or  intervention,  upon  his  love  ? " 
By  parity  of  reason  we  might  say,  "  Why,  when  I  want 
to  feast  my  eyes  on  the  varied  landscape,  the  ocean,  the 
distant  hills,  should  I  permit  these  intrusive  sunbeams  to 
gleam  over  the  fields,  play  on  the  hillsides,  and  flash  from 
the  waves?  Let  me  rather  go  abroad  in  the  moonless 
and  starless  night,  when  there  is  nothmg  to  intervene 
between  my  vision  and  the  objects  it  would  rest  upon." 
Nothmg,  indeed,  except  dimness  and  distance.  And 
there  has  never  been  anything  but  dimness  and  distance 
to  obstruct  the  clear  view  of  the  Divine  Being  for  the 
nations  and  the  men  that  have  not  looked  to  him  through 
Cln'ist.  From  the  very  necessity  of  the  case,  the  Divine 
presence,  poAver,  and  love  diffused  through  the  universe 
cannot  be  converged  on  the  mental  retina  of  a  new-born, 
limited,  earth-bound  mortal.  A  form  m  which  those  rays 
that  stream  from  and  over  all  nature  are  converged  and 
made  visible,  in  which  love  is  pledged,  pardon  proffered, 
protection  guaranteed,  the  Father's  arms  folded  about  liis 
children,  is  an  imperative  demand  of  natm-al  religion. 
For  souls  born  of  God  must  yearn  to  know  him.  Souls 
conscious  of  sin  must  crave  forgiveness  and  reconciliation. 
Souls  needy  and  dependent  must  long  for  express  assur- 
ance, sensible  manifestation  of  the  Supreme  Providence. 
This  demand  was  urged  by  the  greatest  and  wisest  minds 
of  Pagan  antiquity,  and  was  the  subject  of  theii'  undoubt- 
ing  foresight  no  less  than  of  Hebrew  prophecy.  In  this 
sense  Jesus  the  Mediator  was  the  desire  of  all  nations. 
2.  This  manifestation  of  God  needed  to  be  made  in 
human  form,  and  natural  rehgion  would  anticipate  the 


166  CHRISTIANITY   THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

manifestation  in  tliis  form.  We  can  conceive  in  God  o^ 
no  attributes  of  wliich  we  have  not  the  capacity  in  our- 
selves. He  may  have  other  attributes ;  but  if  so,  we 
cannot  attain  to  the  knowledge  of  them  in  this  hfe,  and 
can  learn  them  in  heaven  only  by  the  development  of 
new  powers  in  om-  own  natm-es.  As  I  have  shown  you 
in  the  earher  part  of  this  course,  mu'acles  are  adequate  to 
reveal  the  Divine  personality.  God  becomes  known  as  a 
person  by  visibly  detaching  liimself  from  liis  works  and 
from  the  order  of  nature  ;  by  presenting  himself  as  a  will 
and  a  power  supreme  over  the  impersonal  forces  of  the 
universe  ;  by  those  acts  of  sovereignty  m  wliich,  in  the 
sublime  language  of  Scriptm^e,  "  -He  bowed  the  heavens 
and  came  down,"  —  in  wliich  liis  voice  was  heard  and  his 
arm  beheld  by  the  astonished  nations.  Thus  far  the 
Hebrews  —  and  they  alone  of  all  the  ancients  —  had 
just  conceptions  of  the  Supreme  Being.  But  then-  idea 
of  God  was  imperfect,  simply  because  it  had  not  been 
derived  from  a  perfect  mcarnation,  —  because  perfect 
humanity  had  not  been  seen.  Thefr  God  was  the  Sover- 
eign, but  not  the  Universal  Father.  He  was  angry,  and 
needed  to  be  appeased  by  sacrifice.  He  was  their  friend, 
but  not  the  friend  of  the  whole  race  of  man.  He  par- 
took of  the  narrowness  and  the  unlovely  passions  of  a 
bigoted,  jealous,  morose,  and  vindictive  people.  The 
imprecatory  Psalms,  while  they  represent  the  darker 
aspects  of  the  characters  of  the  best  men  among  the 
posterity  of  Jacob,  as  truly  represent  the  limitations  of 
their  knowledge  of  the  Supreme  Bemg,  as  the  Psalms 
of  lofty  trust  and  praise  exhibit,  along  with  the  profound 
and  earnest  piety  of  the  writers,  thefr  just  conceptions  of 
all  of  the  Divine  natm-e  that  could  be  revealed  mthout 
bemg  incarnated. 


GOD   IN   CHRIST.  167 

But  in  Jesus  we  behold  all  contrasts  of  goodness  com- 
bined and  harmonized,  —  the  strong  and  the  tender,  the 
Judge  and  the  Father,  holmess  and  gentleness,  freedom 
from  sin  and  sympathy  with  the  sinner,  —  the  traits  which 
by  themselves  would  constrain  profound  and  awe-stricken 
reverence,  and  those  Avhich  by  themselves  would  draw 
out  the  intunacy  and  warmth  of  fi-aternal  affection.  In 
him  righteousness  and  mercy,  justice  and  love,  are  made 
one.  We  see  in  him  not  merely  the  massive  elements 
of  character,  but  equally  the  dehcate  tracery  of  senti- 
ment, the  perfectness  of  spiritual  beauty,  —  all  that  can 
bring  him  near  to  the  common  scenes  of  life,  all  that  we 
gladly  associate  with  an  omnipresent  witness  and  an 
unfailing  friend.  When  through  him  as  a  medium  of 
vision  we  look  to  God,  while  the  Divine  grandem-  and 
glory  are  presented  up  to  and  beyond  om-  power  of  con- 
ception, we  at  the  same  time  learn  to  attach  to  the  Au- 
thor of  our  being  all  that  is  lovely  and  beautiful  in  a 
perfect  human  being,  all  of  humanity  except  its  folhes 
and  its  sins,  all  in  which  God's  noblest  creation  can  have 
been  the  embodied  thought  of  the  Creator. 

In  point  of  fact,  the  largest,  loftiest,  most  self-justif^dng 
conception  of  the  Deity  that  has  ever  been  attamed  by 
man  is  the  Christian  conception ;  and  this  extends  just  so 
far  as  the  indi\ddual  thinker  can  take  in  the  character  of 
Christ,  and  no  farther.  Thus,  were  Christ  now  on  earth, 
we  could  go  to  him  for  pardon,  counsel,  and  help,  without 
question  or  misgiving,  as  we  would  go  to  a  father,  were 
he  no  less  able  than  willing  to  meet  all  our  needs ;  and 
just  so  far  as  Christ  awakens  m  us  this  sentiment  of  famil- 
iar trust,  do  we  discern  in  his  person,  as  we  can  through 
no  other  medium,  how  the  Eternal  Father  clasps  aromid 
the  needy,  the  suffering,  and  the  sinning  the  embrace  of 


168  CHRISTIANITY   THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

ineffable  tenderness,  —  liow  for  every  want,  in  weariness 
and  in  grief,  under  the  burden  of  one's  own  heart,  in  the 
intense  agony  of  self-reproach,  man's  true  recourse  is  to 
the  bosom  of  everlasting  love. 

Now  the  argument  which  I  would  urge  is  this.  The 
viewsof  the  Divine  character  of  which  I  have  spoken,  those 
which  connect  with  God's  iafinite  power,  wisdom,  and  ma- 
jesty an  equal  peifectness  in  the  tender,  genial,  amiable 
aspects  of  character,  are  exclusively  Christian  m  their 
som*ce.  Even  revelation  does  not  give  them,  —  they  come 
from  manifestation  alone,  from  a  theophany.  If  I  may 
use  the  words  in  a  sense  in  which  they  coiTespond  not  to 
a  limiting  dogma,  but  to  universal  Christian  consciousness, 
they  come  fr'om  "  God  manifest  in  the  flesh."  But  thus 
derived,  they  are,  as  I  have  said,  self-justifying.  Once 
suggested,  they  form  the  only  conception  of  God  wliich 
we  can  thenceforth  deem  tenable.  They  commend  them- 
selves as  intrinsically  probable.  They  are  confimied  by 
our  growing  knowledge  of  nature.  They  are  verified 
equally  by  our  external  experience,  and  by  then'  benign 
efficacy  in  moulding  our  characters  and  gOYernmg  our 
lives.  Received  from  Cln-ist,  they  become  to  us  m  the 
profoundest  and  most  mtunate  sense  natural,  so  that,  were 
we  forced  to  surrender  them,  nature  would  lose  its  iden- 
tity, and  become  unnatural.  From  all  this  the  legitimate 
conclusion  is,  that  the  manifestation,  the  theophany,  wliich 
thus  shows  us  what  God  is,  is  itself  natm-al,  and  was  to 
have  been  anticipated.  So  far  is  it  fr-om  standing  ui  the 
contrast  to  natural  religion  in  which  even  Christians  have 
been  wont  to  place  it,  that  the  religion  of  natm'e  would 
be  incomplete  without  it. 

3.  I  would  next  speak  of  Christ  as  the  model  for 
hrnnan  vii'tue.     The  identity  of  Christianity  with  natural 


GOD  IN   CHRIST.  169 

religion  is  seen  in  the  unchanged  and  -unchangeable 
beauty,  lustre,  and  glory  of  its  Founder's  character. 
He  is  the  only  luminary  in  the  moral  universe  which 
has  no  secular  parallax,  —  which  appears  the  same  from 
century  to  century,  the  same  by  the  refined  and  exalted 
standard  of  modern  times  that  he  did  by  the  rude  and 
gross  standard  of  his  own  day.  While  he  was  upon 
earth,  in  a  corrupt  age  and  among  a  degenerate  nation, 
it  might  seem  no  wonder  that  he  moved  like  a  very  god 
among  men.  That  the  multitude  strewed  then'  garments 
on  his  path ;  that  the  officials  of  the  High-Priest,  when 
sent  to  arrest  him,  could  not  find  it  in  their  hearts  to  lay 
hands  on  him ;  that  the  centmion  who  went  to  keep 
guard,  as  at  the  execution  of  a  malefactor  beneath  con- 
tempt, exclaimed,  "  Surely  this  man  was  a  son  of  God," 
—  these  mi2:ht  have  seemed  the  not  unnatural  testimo- 
nials  of  spontaneous  reverence  to  the  power  of  superior 
excellence  at  a  period  when  virtue  was  rare,  and  moral 
heroism  was  seldom,  in  its  passive  forms  never,  witnessed. 
But  as  fi'om  that  low  stand-point  we  ascend  to  the  higher 
planes  of  human  goodness,  we  find  the  admiration  for  him 
undiminished.  None  so  revere  liim  as  they  who  are 
themselves  the  most  worthy  of  reverence.  None  feel  so 
humbled  in  comparison  with  him,  as  those  who  only  gain 
lustre  by  comparison  with  the  best  beside  him. 

May  I  not  appeal  to  individual  experience  for  the  result 
of  prolonged  famiharity  with  his  character  ?  Other  his- 
tox'ical  personages  we  can  study  to  excess,  —  we  become 
weary  of  them,  and  they  are  belittled  to  our  apprehen- 
sion. We  can  take  in  all  that  they  were  and  all  that 
they  accomplished,  —  we  can  go  round  them  and  over 
them,  and  the  greatest  of  them  constitutes  so  small  a 
portion  of  the  world's  greatness,  and  shapes  so  small  a 
8 


170  CHRISTIANITY   THE   RELIGION    OF   NATURE. 

portion  of  the  world's  liistory,  that  he  becomes  dwarfed 
ill  the  very  attempt  to  compass  and  comprehend  his  mag- 
nitude. The  fame  of  some  popular  hero  is  often  thus 
injm'iously  affected  by  oui'  having  read  and  heard  too 
much  about  him,  though  it  be  all  to  his  praise.  But  who 
gets  tired  of  Christ,  or  feels  that  he  has  exhausted  His 
fulness  ?  He  occupies  the  lowest  place  with  those  who 
know  him  least.  He  grows  upon  our  study.  New  lines 
and  hues  of  spiritual  beauty  reveal  themselves  with  every 
fresh  perusal  of  the  evangehc  record ;  there  is  new  mean- 
ing in  liis  acts,  new  force  in  his  words.  On  intimate 
conversance  with  his  life,  indifference  passes  into  respect, 
respect  deepens  into  reverence,  reverence  glows  into 
adoration.  More  and  more  does  the  human  become 
divuie,  as  we  behold  the  glory  of  God  in  the  face  of 
Jesus  Clirist.  None  look  so  lovmgly  into  his  counte- 
nance as  those  whose  wonted  place  is  with  John  on  the 
bosom  of  then'  Lord.  We  can  conceive  of  no  change  in 
the  picture  which  would  not  be  for  the  worse.  There  is 
no  defect,  no  excess,  no  redmidancy. 

But  if  in  the  moral  character  of  Jesus  there  is  nothing 
that  belongs  peculiarly  to  liis  age  or  nation,  nothing  con- 
ventional, nothing  transient  or  capable  of  bemg  outgro^vn, 
in  fine,  if  it  is  wholly  miaffected  by  the  time  and  space 
element,  then  that  character  must  be,  not  by  li}q3erbole, 
but  hterally,  di^dne,  —  and  if  di\ane,  then  natui'al,  —  de- 
rived from  and  conformed  to  that  natui'e  which  is  abso- 
lute, unchangeable  goodness  and  holiness.  In  revermg 
and  following  Christ,  we  are  rendering  honor  to  God  and 
imitating  him,  and  the  rehgion  which  consists  in  this  is 
pre-eminently  natural ;  for  what  can  be  so  natm'al  as 
for  the  creatm-e  to  honor  the  Creator,  —  for  the  intelh- 
gent  and  self-determhimg  creatiu'e  to  imitate  Hun  fr'om 


GOD   IN    CHRIST.  171 

wliom  lie  derived  the  power  of  thought,  will,  and  choice  ? 
In  the  light  in  which  I  have  now  presented  Christ  as  an 
exemplar  of  human  goodness,  (though  I  by  no  means 
deny  the  more  strictly  dogmatic  sense  commonly  attached 
to  such  phraseology,)  Christ  was  before  Abraham,  before 
the  worlds ;  he  manifested  that  wliich  was  truth  and 
right  m  the  beginning,  absolute  goodness,  eternal  recti- 
tude ;  and  the  religion  based  on  his  hfe  belongs  to  the 
organism  of  the  spiritual  miiverse,  and  is  therefore,  m  the 
strictest  and  most  intimate  sense,  the  religion  of  nature. 

As  the  Mediator,  as  the  image  of  God,  as  the  model  of 
perfect  humanity,  we  have  thus  seen  that  Christ,  standing 
though  he  does  alone  m  history,  heralded  by  prophecy, 
authenticated  by  miracle,  is  still  a  natm^al  personage,  — 
a  being  whose  advent  might  have  been  anticipated  on 
grounds  connected  with  the  nature  of  God  and  of  man. 
We  may,  I  think,  go  still  further,  and  inquire,  without 
hreverence,  under  wdiat  outward  circumstances  it  was 
antecedently  probable  that  such  a  manifestation  would 
be  made. 

1.  We  might,  in  the  first  place,  expect  that  the  birth 
and  parentage  of  this  personage  would  be  exempted  from 
all  intrinsically  or  reputedly  mean  and  vulgar  associations, 
—  from  all  that  would  of  necessity  make  him  the  object 
of  contempt  and  scorn.  How  far  was  this  condition  ful- 
filled in  Jesus  ?  His  reputed  parents,  though  poor,  were 
not  paupers.  Though  they  were  in  humble  condition,  all 
the  notices  we  have  of  them  authorize  the  assertion  that 
they  and  their  kindred  and  associates  were  respectable 
and  respected,  industrious,  intelligent,  and  virtuous,  bear- 
ing no  brand  that  would  exclude  them  from  favored  rec- 
ognition in  so  democratic  a  state  of  society  as  then  pre- 


172  CHRISTIANITY   THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

vailed  in  Judaea.  The  legal  necessity  of  their  going  from 
Nazareth  to  Bethlehem  for  registration  shows  that  they 
were  not  mere  proletaries,  but  that  they  were  possessed 
of  some  slender  freehold  in  the  latter  of  these  cities, 
while  the  tradition  runs  that  they  owned  a  house  in  the 
former.  Then-  descent  fr-om  the  ancient  royal  hue,  though 
so  remote,  and  shared  by  so  many,  as  to  create  no  aristo- 
cratic prestige,  yet  enhanced  then'  self-respect,  and  gave 
them  a  certain  degree  of  social  consideration. 

2.  In  the  next  place,  it  was  equally  fitting  that  the 
beino-  who  was  to  stand  m  this  official  relation  between 
God  and  man  should  have  none  of  the  ordinary  clauns  to 
distinction  and  eminence.  Wealth,  rank,  place,  or  title, 
so  far  as  it  had  any  prominence  in  his  condition,  would 
tend  to  diminish  the  lustre  of  his  character.  Heaven's 
purest  gems  need  no  setting,  and  sliine  brightest  when 
they  shine  alone.  He  who  is  to  draw  all  men  to  liimself 
by  the  beauty  and  majesty  of  liis  spmt,  should  have  noth- 
ing in  his  surromidings  which  will  bring  to  him  a  spurious 
homage,  an  interested  chentship,  adherents  to  his  earthly 
fortunes  and  not  to  liis  supra-mundane  sovereignty.  Even 
Jesus,  in  his  want  and  careftil  abnegation  of  all  that  ordi- 
narily draws  parasites,  was  at  one  time  harassed  by  men 
who  sought  him  because  they  had  been  fed  by  him  in 
the  desert.  How  constantly  and  annoyingly  would  this 
experience  have  been  repeated,  had  he  had  a  mansion  and 
a  table  of  his  own  !  The  scanty  frmds  contributed  for  his 
wayfaring  by  gratefal  disciples  tempted  the  cupidity  of 
one  bad  man,  and  that  one  was  the  most  important  and 
serviceable  meinber  of  the  apostohc  college  ;  for  liis  tes- 
timony is  of  priceless  worth.  Could  he  have  charged  his 
Master  with  the  shadow  of  ^vi'ong,  he  might  have  made 
his  thirty  pieces  of  silver  thirty  thousand,  and  his  employ- 


GOD  IN  CHRIST.  173 

ers,  if  tliey  had  not  had  money  enough,  would  have  levied 
contributions  throughout  Judaea  for  the  deficit ;  but  when 
he  tuL'ned  traitor,  there  was  absolutely  nothing  for  him  to 
betray  except  the  spot  where  the  homeless  Saviour  was 
going-  to  pass  the  night.  But  had  there  been  that  in 
Christ's  outward  condition  which  could  be  preyed  upon, 
his  pubhc  appearance  at  a  time  when  the  expectations  of 
his  people  were  so  intensely  raised,  would  have  attracted 
a  horde  of  such  miscreants.  Then,  too,  any  definite  rank 
which  could  be  looked  up  to  by  the  multitude  would  have 
removed  him  from  the  sympathy  of  those  beneath  him, 
while  he  would  have  stood  on  an  arena,  on  which  even 
faultless  excellence  could  not  have  exempted  liim  from 
paltry  rivalries  and  jealousies.  It  was  necessary  that  in 
his  worldly  estate  he  should  be  at  once  above  contempt 
and  beneath  envy. 

3.  Above  all,  it  was  necessary  that  he  who  should  bear 
the  Divine  image,  and  stand  forth  as  the  world's  exem- 
plar, should  be  "  a  man  of  sorrows,  and  acquainted  with 
grief"  ;  that  he  should  tread  the  darkest  passages  of  the 
earthly  pilgrimage,  and  the  valley  of  the  death-shadow. 
It  is  the  tendency  of  human  thought  to  connect  all  pain- 
ftj  experiences  —  penury,  suffering,  and  death  —  with  the 
Divine  displeasm-e,  to  regard  afflictions  as  judgments  of 
Heaven,  and  even  to  brand  the  victims  of  signally  heavy 
calamities  as  sinners  beyond  all  others.  How  nmnerous 
are  the  traces  of  this  habit  of  mmd  in  the  sacred^  wiit- 
ings  !  It  forms,  as  you  know,  the  burden  of  the  harangues 
of  several  among  the  interlocutors  in  the  di'amatic  poem 
of  Job  ;  it  is  referred  to  repeatedly  in  the  Psalms,  and 
was  on  several  occasions  forced  on  the  anunadversion  of 
Christ.  At  the  same  time,  we  find  it  not  infrequently 
recognized  in   the   ancient   classics.     Only  thi'ough  the 


174  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF   NATURE. 

destitution,  homelessness,  agony,  and  cross  of  the  Sinless 
One  did  tlie  world  learn  that  him  whom  God  loves  He 
chastens.  Then,  too,  it  is  in  these  experiences  that  man 
most  needs  both  example  and  sympathy,  —  the  example 
of  submission,  trust,  and  hope,  the  sympathy  of  one  who 
has  endured  and  overcome.  The  sufFermg  now  look  to 
Christ  in  his  agony,  and  repeat  his  prayer,  "  Not  my  wiU, 
but  thine,  be  done,"  till  pain  and  giief  are  merged  in 
resignation,  and  turned  to  joy  by  the  hope  that  is  fall  ol 
immortahty.  The  dying  look  to  the  grave  as  the  place 
where  the  Lord  lay,  and  whence  he  rose,  and  calmly 
and  rejoicmgly  commit  their  departing  sphits  to  their 
Father.  Grief  is  transfigiu^ed  by  his  endiu:ance  ;  death  is 
swallowed  up  in  victory  by  the  might  of  liis  cross  and  the 
power  of  his  resurrection. 

The  influence  of  a  suffering  Redeemer  has  left  its  in- 
delible traces  in  language,  which  often  embodies  in  single 
words  whole  chapters  of  human  history.  Before  he  suf- 
fered, the  terms  that  denoted  sad  experiences  were  all 
such  as  represented  only  the  mahgnant  aspect  of  what 
man  endured,  or,  at  best,  the  smgle  fact  of  endui-ance. 
Take,  for  instance,  the  word  calamitas  (calamity),  the 
condition,  some  say,  of  the  blighted  stalk,  which  bears  no 
ear  of  grain  ;  others,  of  the  broken  reed}  To  Tertulhan,^ 
the  earliest  of  the  Latm  Fathers,  belongs,  I  believe,  the 
appropriation  of  the  first  word  that  tells  the  whole  story, 
expresses  the  divine  side,  the  blessed  ministry  of  sorrow,  — 
tribulatio  (tribulation),  —  threshing,  the  process  by  which 

1  Wedgwood  regards  calamitas  as  not  impj-obably  derived  fi'om  the  root 
■which  furnishes,  in  the  Welsli,  col,  denoting  loss  or  misfortune ;  a  root  which 
he  traces  in  the  Latin  incolumis,  expressing  the  negation  of  loss  or  misfortune. 
If  we  admit  this  derivation,  the  word  calamitas  is  still  void  of  any  spiritual 
or  hopeful  significance. 

2  Adversus  Judceos,  11. 


GOD  IN   CHRIST.  175 

the  elements  of  character  are  separated,  the  chaff  given 
to  the  winds,  the  wheat  heaped  up  for  the  harvest  of 
which  the  angels  are  the  reapers. 

I  have  thus  shown  you  that  m  the  person  and  relations 
of  Christ  as  Mediator,  as  the  image  of  God,  as  the  ex- 
emplar of  man,  we  have  precisely  the  offices  which  on 
a  priori  grounds  we  should  anticipate  from  the  loving 
providence  of  God ;  and  that  in  his  condition  in  life,  his 
sufferings,  and  his  death,  we  have  the  very  elements 
which  alone  could  have  met  the  needs  of  man,  and  thus 
have  satisfied  the  postulate  of  natural  religion. 


LECTURE    IX 


IMMORTALITY. 


Among  the  contents  of  the  Christian  revelation,  next 
in  intrinsic  importance  to  the  Divine  attributes  is  the 
immortahty  of  the  soul.  In  my  first  Lecture  I  showed 
you  that  m  the  nature  of  things  immortahty  cannot  be  an 
object  of  consciousness,  or  a  necessary  inference  from 
known  premises  ;  that  there  are  m  the  external  universe 
analogies  both  for  and  against  it ;  and  that  analogy,  even 
could  it  be  urged  on  the  affirmative  side  alone,  proves 
nothing,  but  is  valid  only  as  an  answer  to  objections 
agamst  truths  or  beliefs  that  rest  on  mdependent  grounds 
of  argument  and  evidence.  A  life  beyond  death  can 
be  made  certain  only  by  revelation  dhect  or  mediate, 
verbal  or  phenomenal,  —  by  the  authenticated  testimony 
of  a  divine  messenger,  or  by  the  return  to  this  world  of 
those  whom  we  call  dead,  to  teach  us  that  death  is  a 
name  and  not  a  fact.  Yet  if  man  is  destined  for  a  higher 
sphere  of  being,  we  should  expect  to  find  some  bhth- 
marks  of  this  destiny,  and  some  features  in  his  outward 
condition  here  and  m  the  structure  and  coui'se  of  the 
visible  universe  that  harmonize  with  tliis  hypothesis  rather 
than  with  the  theory  of  annihilation.  It  is  m  this  dh'ec- 
tion  that  I  now  propose  to  guide  yom*  inqmry. 

In  the  first  place,  death,  so  far  as  we  know,  is  a  merely 
physical  change  ;  its  observed  phenomena  are  solely  ma- 
terial ;  and  if  there  be  an  immaterial  principle  in  man, 


IMMORTALITY.  177 

a  soul  that  depends  not  on  the  bodily  organism  for  its 
existence  and  its  capacity  of  perception,  thought,  and 
emotion,  it  is  at  least  possible  that  the  soul  may  live  on 
when  the  body  dies.  What  evidence  then  have  we  of 
the  immateriality  of  the  soul  ?  Consciousness,  it  is  com- 
monly mamtained,  affirms  the  soul  to  be  immaterial. 
The  self-conscious  me  does  not  identify  itself  with  the 
limbs  and  the  organs.  We  habitually  tliink  of  them 
as  not  themselves  perceiving,  reflectmg,  judging,  but  as 
instruments  which  we  employ  for  these  ends,  —  as  not 
themselves  powers,  but  as  the  irresponsible  agents  of  a 
controlling  power,  —  as  belonging  philosophically  to  the 
same  category  with  lenses,  canes,  and  calculatmg-ma- 
chines.  When  we  use  the  word  7,  we  mean  by  it  some- 
thing more  than  the  whole  body,  —  something  which 
imparts  to  the  multiform  body  a  oneness  other  than  that 
which  belongs  to  it  by  virtue  of  its  mere  stmctm-e 
(which  latter  oneness,  we  know,  is  Hterally  dissolved  m 
death),  —  sometliing  which  owns  the  body  as  its  property, 
and  commands,  it  as  its  servant. 

"  The  purple  stream  wliich  through  my  vessels  glides 
Dull  and  unconscious  flows,  like  common  tides. 
The  pipes  through  which  the  circling  juices  play- 
Are  not  that  thinking  I  no  more  than  they. 
This  frame,  compacted  with  transcendent  skill 
Of  moving  joints  obedient  to  my  will, 
Nursed  from  the  fruitful  glebe,  like  yonder  tree, 
Waxes  and  wastes.    I  call  it  mine,  not  me." 

If  mmd  is  the  result  of  material  organization,  then 
every  mental  action  must  be  a  material  process  and  pro- 
duct. If  a  mere  process,  we  might  apply  to  it  a  theory 
corresponding  to  the  undvdatory  theory  of  hght  and  heat, 
and  it  is  at  lea.st  conceivable  that  vibrations  of  tlie  brain, 
or  electric  impulses  sent  along  those  magnetic  wires,  the 
8*  L 


178  CHRISTIANITY   THE  EELIGION  OF  NATUEE. 

nerves,  should  cause  the  modes  of  bemg  which  we  desig- 
nate as  ideas,  judgments,  and  emotions.  But  the  perma- 
nence of  these  modes  of  being  is  fatal  to  the  undulatory 
hypothesis.  Every  mental  action  is  not  only  a  process, 
but  a  product.  Something  is  inwrought  wliich  remains 
in  existence.  Permanent  modifications  of  the  conscious- 
ness are  made  during  every  waking  hour.  In  order  to 
render  memory  possible  on  the  materialistic  hypothesis, 
every  tln-ob  of  a  nerve,  every  vibration  of  the  bram,  must 
leave  its  life-long  traces  in  the  material  stmctm-e.  But  to 
conceive  of  this  carries  us  unmeasm-ably  beyond  the  mar- 
vellous disclosures  of  microscopic  discovery.  Myriads  of 
legible  and  endming  entries  must  be  made  within  every 
needle's  point  of  the  brain.  If  the  unnmubered  words, 
dates,  facts,  and  experiences  that  lie  in  the  memory  make 
each  some  permanent  notch,  furrow,  or  mark,  of  whatever 
kind,  or  however  minute,  the  brain  m  very  infancy  would 
be  too  ftdl  to  admit  of  added  mental  growth.  Physically, 
it  is  as  utterly  impossible  for  a  life-record  to  be  kept  mth- 
in  the  walls  of  a  human  cranium,  as  it  would  be  for  a 
year's  accounts  of  the  United  States  Treasmy  to  be  tran- 
scribed on  half  a  sheet  of  note-paper. 

It  may,  indeed,  be  objected  to  tliis  reasoning,  that  in 
pomt  of  fact  mental  action  depends  for  its  precision,  vigor, 
and  brilhancy  on  the  degree  in  which  the  bodily  organiza- 
tion is  symmetrical  and  healthful,  and  especially  on  the 
shape  and  size  of  the  cranium.  I  answer,  that  this  would 
of  necessity  be  the  case,  equally  on  the  materialistic  and 
on  the  immaterial  hypothesis.  The  question  is  not  as  to 
the  means,  but  as  to  the  seat  and  source,  of  mental  action. 
The  immaterialist  by  no  means  denies  the  instrumentality 
of  the  bodily  organization,  —  its  necessary  instrumentality 
4uring  the  present  state  of  being.     The  body  is  the  soul's 


IMMORTALITY.  179 

case  of  tools,  and  the  quality  of  tlie  soul's  action  must 
depend  on  tlie  strength  and  temper  of  those  tools.  Un- 
less they  are  in  good  order,  the  soul  must  work,  either 
not  at  all,  as  in  idiocy,  or  languidly,  as  in  imbecihty,  or 
without  reasonable  purpose,  as  in  insanity.  But  this  Ha- 
billty  to  inferior  execution  here  by  no  means  proves  that 
the  sold  is  incapable  of  surviving  its  present  set  of  tools, 
and,  with  better  mstruments,  of  doing  ample  justice  to  a 
skill  and  power  native,  but  unsuspected  now.  Give  the 
most  accomphshed  artist  dull  or  clmnsy  instruments,  his 
work  will  be  vastly  below  a  master's  hand ;  but  his  taste 
and  genius,  though  hidden  from  human  eye,  remain  un- 
impau^ed,  nor  will  his  present  rough  and  ill-shapen  pro- 
ductions prevent  him  from  one  day  rivalhng  Canova, 
should  he  be  smTOunded  with  the  material  aids  through 
which  alone  Canova  could  give  form  to  his  conceptions. 
This  temporaiy  dependence,  yet  essential  and  ultimate 
non-dependence,  of  the  soul  on  the  body  is  well  illustrated 
in  these  stanzas  from  Sir  John  Davies's  poem  on  the  Im- 
mortality of  the  Soul :  — 

"  As  a  good  harper,  stricken  far  in  years, 

Into  wliose  cunning  hands  the  gout  doth  fall, 
All  his  old  crotchets  in  his  brain  he  bears. 
But  on  his  harp  plays  ill,  or  not  at  all;  — 

"  But  if  Apollo  takes  his  gout  away, 

That  he  his  nimble  fingers  may  apply, 
Apollo's  self  will  envy  at  his  play, 
And  all  the  world  applaud  his  minstrelsy."  i 

There  is,  then,  no  conclusive  objection  to  the  soul's 
immateriality  derived  from  the  correlation  between  a  well 
or  ill  developed  brain  and  a  well  or  ill  working  mind ; 
while   the   affirmative  argimient  fi'om  consciousness  and 

1   Original,  Natwre,  and  ImmortaliUj  of  the  Soul,  Section  xxxiii. 


180  CHEISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION  OF  NATUEE. 

memory  remains  rniimpeached.  But  if  the  soul  be  im- 
material, it  is  a  separate  existence  j5:om  the  body,  and  the 
disorganization  of  the  body  cannot  destroy  it.  If  it  dies 
with  the  body,  it  must  nevertheless  die  by  a  dii-ect  act  of 
annihilation,  or  by  the  reabsorption  into  the  universal 
soul  affirmed  by  pantheism,  which  is  simply  a  euphemism 
for  annihilation.  But  annihilation  has  never  occuiTed 
withm  human  experience  or  observation.  The  death  of 
organized  being  is  only  a  separation  of  particles,  which 
enter  forthwith  mto  new  combinations,  and  generally  into 
new  forms  of  hfe.  The  very  phenomena  of  death,  there- 
fore, as  they  involve  no  destruction  of  any  visible  or 
tangible  portion  of  the  being  that  dies,  furnish  a  strong 
presumptive  argument  agamst  the  destiniction  by  death 
of  the  immaterial  portion  of  the  bemg,  of  which  the  senses 
cannot  take  cognizance. 

But  if  the  soul  smwive  the  body,  how  can  it  hve  on  in 
self-consciousness  and  activity  ?  How,  mthout  a  bodily 
organization,  can  it  retain  its  conversance  with  the  physi- 
cal miiverse  ?  How  can  sights  reach  the  soul  without 
the  eye,  or  sounds  without  the  ear  ?  How  can  locomo- 
tion take  place  without  material  organs,  to  overcome 
material  resistance  ?  I  reply,  that,  in  point  of  fact,  the 
ideas  of  things  seen,  heard,  and  felt  reach  the  conscious- 
ness, not  only  Avithout  the  aid  of  the  organs  of  sense,  but 
without  the  existence  of  corresponding  objects  in  the 
outward  miiverse.  In  insanity,  sights  which  the  eye  sees 
not,  sounds  which  the  ear  hears  not,  are  inwardly  per- 
ceived with  the  utmost  vividness.  In  dreams,  too,  we 
seem  to  see,  hear,  and  feel  as  distinctly  as  when  the 
senses  are  all  aAvake,  and  conversant  with  their  appropri- 
ate objects.  Now  if  the  soul  can  receive  these  several 
classes  of  unpressions  mthout  employing  the  organs  of 


IMMORTALITY.  181 

sense,  why  may  it  not  mthout  possessing  tliem  ?  Or  if 
it  be  capable  of  seeing,  hearing,  and  feelmg  things  that 
are  not,  how  can  we  affirm  that  it  is  incapable  of  per- 
ceiving tilings  that  are  ?  Moreover,  it  is  not  the  eye  that 
sees,  or  the  ear  that  hears.^  Dissect  these  organs  entire 
from  the  human  frame,  they  are  powerless.  Leave  them 
enth-e,  and  darken  the  soul  by  msanity,  they  carry  it 
false  reports.  It  is  the  soid  that  looks  out  through  the 
eyes  and  listens  tlu'ough  the  ears.  And  does  not  its 
power  of  seemg  and  hearing  by  means  of  these  instru- 
ments imply  and  mclude  a  perceptive  power  which  might 
be  exercised  through  other  instrumentahties,  or  directly 
and  without  medium  ?  It  is  at  least  a  tenable  hypothesis, 
that  sight  and  hearmg,  and  locomotion  also,  are  functions 
inherent  in  the  soul ;  and  that  the  bodily  organization  is 
less  the  means  of  then-  exercise,  than  a  temporary  limit 
and  hinderance  to  their  extent  and  power.  It  may  be  that 
we  m  our  present  state  are  spirits  in  prison,  —  that  the 
eye  is  the  prison- window  through  which  the  soul  enjoys 
a  httle  portion  of  its  native  range  of  vision,  the  ear  an 
aperture  in  the  prison-wall  thi-ough  which  we  catch  a  few 
of  the  sounds  wliich,  if  set  at  large,  we  might  take  m 
through  a  vast  extent  of  space,  while  the  feet,  so  far 
fi'om  being  the  means  of  motion,  only  measure  the  du'cc- 
tion  and  length  of  the  spirit's  chain.  If  this  be  true, 
when  the  dungeon-walls  decay,  when  we  quit  our  house 
of  bondage,  our  disembodied  souls  may  acquh'e  at  once  a 
keenness  of  -vision  of  which  we  cannot  now  conceive, 
hear  the  ftdl  diapason  of  natm-e's  harmony,   and  move 

1  "  Nos  enira  ne  nunc  quidem  oculis  cernimus  ea,  quae  videmus  ;  ncque 
enim  est  ullus  sensus  in  covpore,  sed,  ut  non  solum  physici  docent,  veriua 
etiam  medici,  qui  ista  aperta  et  patefacta  viderunt,  viae  quasi  quaedam  sunt 
ad  oculos,  ad  aui-es,  ad  nares,  a  sede  animi  perforatse."  —  Cicero,  Tusc 
Qusest.  I.  20. 


182  CHRISTIANITY   THE   RELIGION   OF   NATURE 

uncliecked    and    free   at   every    prompting    of   love   or 
duty.i 

But  this  is  not  the  only,  nor  to  my  mind  the  most 
probable  h^^othesis.  It  is  entu^ely  conceivable  that  a 
vu'tual  resurrection  of  the  body  may  be  comcident  with 
its  death ;  not,  indeed,  the  recombmation  of  the  precise 
material  elements  that  were  combined  before  death  (which, 
if  it  take  place,  can  be  realized  only  at  some  far-off  res- 
urrection epoch),  but  the  re-embodiment  of  the  soul  in  an 
organism  allied  to  and  developed  fr^om  that  wliich  has 
here  been  its  dwelling-place,  so  that  it  shall  be,  m  apos- 
tohc  language,  "  not  miclothed,  but  clothed  upon."    Some- 

1  "  Nam  nvmc  quidem,  quanquam  foramina  ilia,  quae  patent  ad  animum  a 
corpore,  callidissimo  artificio  natura  fabricata  est,  tamen  terrenis  concretisque 
corporibus  sunt  intersepta  quodam  modo.  Cum  autem  nihil  erit  praeter  ani- 
mum, nulla  res  objecta  impediet,  quo  minus  percipiat,  quale  quidque  sit."  — 
Tusc.  Queest.  I.  20. 

This  view  of  the  (so-called)  organs  of  sense  as  avenues  rather  than  instru- 
ments of  perception,  and  of  the  soul  as  endowed  with  the  power  of  exercising 
independently  the  functions  which  it  exercises  through  these  avenues,  is  well 
expressed  in  these  quaint  stanzas  of  Henry  More :  — 

"  Like  to  a  light  fast  lock'd  in  lanthorn  dark. 

Whereby  by  ni^ht  our  wary  steps  we  guide 

In  shabby  streets,  and  dirty  chanels  mark  ; 

Some  weaker  rayes  from  the  black  top  do  glide, 

And  flusher  sti-eams  perhaps  through  th'  horny  side. 

But  when  we  've  past  the  perill  of  the  way, 

Arrived  at  home,  and  laid  that  case  aside, 

The  naked  light  how  clearly  doth  it  ray, 
And  spread  its  joyful  beames  as  bright  as  summer's  dayl 

"Even  so,  the  soul  in  this  contracted  state. 

Confined  to  these  straight  instruiuents  of  sense, 

More  dull  and  narrowly  doth  operate  ; 

At  this  hole  heares,  the  sight  must  ray  from  thence. 

Here  tasts,  there  smells.     But  when  she  's  gone  from  hence, 

Like  naked  lamp  she  is  one  shining  spheare, 

And  round  about  has  perfect  cognoscence 

What  ere  in  her  horizon  doth  appear ; 
She  is  one  ox-^  of  sense,  all  eye,  all  airy  ear." 


IMMORTALITY.  183 

tiling  of  tills  kind  may  be  implied  in  those  words  of  St. 
Paul,  "  Thou  sowest  not  that  body  that  shall  be,  ...  . 
but  God  giveth  it  a  body  as  it  hath  pleased  liim."  Mat- 
ter has  all  conceivable  and  inconceivable  deerees  of  teiiu- 
ity.  Science  admits  the  existence,  concurrently  with  the 
atmosphere  tlu'ough  its  whole  extent,  and  in  the  inter- 
stellar spaces  where  there  is  no  atmosphere,  of  an  impal- 
pable and  imponderable  ether,  which  transmits  the  calorific 
waves  of  the  sunlight  and  the  midulations  of  the  solar, 
lunar,  and  stellar  rays.  Mmd  must  be  either  infinite  and 
omnipresent,  which  but  one  mind  can  be,  or  else  localized 
and  chcumscribed  by  some  organism,  which  need  not  be 
gross  or  dense,  but  may  have  as  httle  of  earthiness  as  this 
ether  in  which  the  planets  move,  which  yet  shall  give  it  a 
place  m  the  creation,  and  shall  enable  it  to  act  on  and  to 
be  acted  upon  by  otlier  beings  and  objects  in  the  miiverse. 
And  it  is  enthely  conceivable  that  by  means  of  some  such 
organism  the  soul  in  dying  may  retam  its  personahty,  nay, 
more,  may  preserve  all  that  constituted  its  mdividual  iden- 
tity, even  what  might  recall  wonted  associations  with  fonn 
and  feature,  voice  and  manner,  and  render  it  distinctly 
recognizable  by  fellow-spirits. 

I  suggest  these  liy[3otlieses,  not  as  solving  the  mysteiy 
which  ^'  the  great  teacher.  Death,"  alone  can  solve,  but  to 
show  that,  if  the  soul  be  immaterial,  there  is  nothing  in 
the  dissolution  of  the  body  wliich  should  render  its  sur- 
vivance  of  that  event  impossible  or  improbable. 

I  would  next  speak  of  the  presumption  in  behalf  of  the 
survival  of  the  soul  after  death  derived  from  the  changes 
duiTiig  life  which  it  sur\dves.  Organic  life  is  pei-petual 
decomposition  and  reconstruction ;  in  other  words,  con- 
stant death  and  birth.    There  is  probably  not  a  particle  of 


184  CHEISTIANITY  THE  EELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

matter  in  one  of  our  bodies  wliich  was  there  half  a  dozen 
years  ago;  and,  death  excepted,  there  can  hardly  be  a 
more  enth'e  physical  change  than  occurs  between  child- 
hood and  manhood,  or  between  twenty  and  fom^score,  the 
change  bemg  not  only  one  of  size,  shape,  strength,  and 
voice,  but  often  of  the  w^hole  physical  constitution,  —  the 
puny  child  that  can  hardly  be  kept  alive  growmg  into  a 
stalwart  youth,  the  mvalid  outhvmg  the  mfirmities  of 
many  years  and  becoming  a  vigorous  old  man ;  or,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  fairest  promise  of  health  and  strength  un- 
dennined  by  functional  disease,  of  which  there  was  not  a 
trace  visible  in  the  child  or  the  yomig  man.  Death  differs 
from  these  changes,  not  in  its  entireness,  but  only  m  its 
suddenness,  and  the  capacity  of  the  soul  to  retam  its  iden- 
tity while  the  physical  fi-ame  gradually  loses  its  identity 
certainly  mvolves  the  same  capacity  m  the  more  rapid  and 
paroxysmal  loss  of  the  physical  identity  in  death. 

Consider,  too,  the  lesion  of  the  bodily  organs  by  sick- 
ness or  accident,  in  which  the  soul  retams  its  mtegrity. 
Not  only  may  the  hmbs  be  amputated,  the  eyes  quenched, 
the  Imigs  almost  consumed,  but  the  nerves  may  be  para- 
lyzed, the  brain  wounded  or  diseased,  and  yet  the  mind 
may  remain  unuupaired,  the  soul  miclouded,  nay,  as  if  in 
mockery  of  mere  physical  lunderances,  the  sphit  may 
wield  a  mightier  power  and  mng  a  loftier  flight  than  ever 
before.  And  m  cerebral  disease  attended  by  delirium, 
there  is  no  defect  in  the  quantity  and  intensity  of  mental 
action,  but  often  a  preternatural  brilHancy  and  power, 
though  the  consciousness  ceases  to  take  accurate  cogni- 
zance of  surromiding  persons  and  objects. 

Most  prophetic  of  immortality  beyond  all  else  in  human 
experience  are  the  phenomena  often  Avitnessed  up  to  the 
verj  moment  of  dissolution.     I  have  repeatedly  stood  by 


IMMORTALITY.  185 

the  death-bed  of  one  attenuated  by  long  infirmity,  every 
vital  process  clogged, .  the  pulse  intermittent,  the  blood 
already  becoming  stagnant ;  and  I  have  seen  the  dying 
still  m  the  full  vigor  of  his  intellect,  master  of  his  position, 
clearer  and  stronger  in  thought  and  judgment  than  any 
one  of  the  by-standers,  addressing  appropriate  counsel  or 
consolation  to  each  of  the  afflicted  chcle,  dictatmg  mes- 
sages of  love  to  the  absent,  and  leaving  no  person  or  in- 
terest forgotten  that  had  the  remotest  right  to  a  place  in 
his  remembrance.  I  have  heard,  too,  in  the  horn'  and 
m  the  embrace  of  death,  not  the  feverish  ecstasies  of 
unreasonmg  fanaticism,  but  the  serene  utterances  of  a 
matm-e  rehgious  ^visdom,  of  undoubting  faith,  of  quiet 
tmst,  of  a  foreseemg  hope  that  had  already  crossed  the 
separating  stream,  and  passed  witliin  the  golden  gates  ; 
and  in  the  eye  kindled  with  a  pm-er,  hoKer  light  than  ever 
glows  except  in  the  Christian's  ascension-room,  in  the 
wan  countenance  radiant  with  the  foreshining  of  the  heav- 
enly day,  m  the  air  of  joyous  expectancy  with  which  the 
parting  moment  is  waited  for  and  welcomed,  the  soul's 
voice  is  :  "  Death,  I  am  not  thine,  and  I  defy  thy  power. 
I  am  mightier  than  thou  art.  Thou  art  but  the  door- 
keeper of  my  house  not  made  with  hands,  my  usher  into 
the  blessed  society  of  the  mifallen  and  the  redeemed." 
From  such  a  death-scene  mto  annihilation  how  vast  the 
leap  !  between  them  how  immeasurable  the  contrast ! 
while  there  seems  not  a  step,  not  even  a  filmy  cloud  or 
an  unparted  veil,  between  the  scene  and  heaven.  From 
such  a  presence  unbelief  is  banished.  The  sceptical  by- 
stander ceases  to  doubt,  always  for  the  moment,  often 
forever;  while  to  the  Christian  the  hand  that  hfted  the 
widow's  son  from  the  bier  becomes  visible,  the  voice  that 
called  Lazarus  from  the  tomb  pulses  upon  the  iuAvard  ear 


186  CHRISTIANITY   THE   RELIGION   OF   NATURE. 

in  tones  that  remain  unforgotten  till  lie  liears  them  again 
in  his  own  d}dng  hour. 

From  these  phenomena  of  approachmg  death  the  argn- 
aient  is  obvious  and  strong.  Did  the  soul  die  with  the 
body,  we  should  certainly  expect  that  it  would  betray 
along  with  the  body  symptoms  of  impendmg  dissolution, 
that  its  hght  would  be  dimmed  and  flickermg,  its  con- 
sciousness confused,  its  power  of  consecutive  thought 
►impeded,  its  memory  clouded,  its  hold  on  wonted  behefs 
relaxed.  But  if  at  that  last  horn'  it  manifests  all  and 
more  than  all  of  vitality  that  w^as  ever  witnessed  in  the 
prime  and  joy  of  its  earthly  being,  there  is  a  strong  pre- 
smnption  that  it  is  destmed  to  survive  the  death-change, 
and  to  put  off  its  worn-out  garment  for  its  ascension-robe. 

I  now  ask  your  attention  to  the  arguments  for  immor- 
tality derived  fi'om  the  mtellectual  and  moral  nature  of 
man.  And  first,  though,  as  I  showed  you  m  a  former 
Lecture,  we  cannot  be  conscious  of  immortahty,  we  are 
conscious  of  an  innate  and  indestructible  desire  for  contin- 
ued existence.  This  desire  belongs,  with  rare  exceptions, 
to  all  developed  natm-es.  It  is  something  more  than  the 
mere  love  of  the  earthly  life,  for  it  is  often  the  strongest 
where  that  love  is  the  weakest.  None  have  felt  it  more 
than  those  who  have  offered  themselves  to  death  for  their 
country,  their  race,  or  their  religion.  It  is  a  feelmg  allied 
to  all  noble  impulses  and  generous  deeds.  It  has  been 
tlie  fountain-head  of  all  patriotism  and  pliilanthropy.  It 
inspires  the  longing  for  posthumous  fame.  It  prompts  the 
appeal  which  the  great  and  good,  who  have  been  scorned 
and  vilified  by  their  contemporaries,  have  so  often  made 
to  the  righteous  verdict  of  posterity,  as  if  they  should  see 
themselves  justified  after  then*  bodies  had  ceased  to  be. 


IMMORTALITY.  187 

Now,  if  man  wholly  dies  when  the  body  dies,  we  can 
hardly  reconcile  tliis  sentiment,  so  almost  universal  in  civ- 
ilized and  cultivated  communities,  with  the  Divme  veracity 
and  integrity. 

Another  argument  for  immortality  may  be  drawn  from 
the  unsuitableness  of  the  present  state  of  things  to  man's 
mental  faculties,  his  capacities  of  enjoyment,  and  Ms  con- 
ceptions of  happiness  and  perfection.  Suppose  that  you 
saw  an  egg  for  the  first  time,  not  knowing  what  it  was, 
and  that  you  discovered  and  opened  it  just  as  the  infant 
bu'd  was  ready  to  force  his  way  out  of  the  shell.  You 
would  see  a  system  of  members  and  organs  for  which  the 
creatm-e  could  have  no  use  in  that  confined  condition,  — 
wings  and  feet  without  space  to  fly  or  walk,  a  digestive 
apparatus  without  the  opportunity  of  procm^ng  food,  eyes 
without  a  field  of  vision,  in  fine,  a  constitution  entu-ely 
misuitable  to  its  present  state.  Your  inference  would  be, 
that,  though  the  egg-shell  was  the  creature's  birthplace, 
it  was  not  destined  to  be  its  home,  —  that  it  was  designed 
for  a  mode  of  life  in  which  its  organs  and  faculties  could 
all  find  their  appropriate  sphere  and  exercise  then'  aj)pro- 
priate  functions,  —  that  it  was  created  for  the  light  and 
the  air,  though  now  shut  out  fi'om  both. 

Man's  condition  in  this  world  is  not  unaptly  typified  by 
the  bird  in  the  shell.  He  has  wino;s  which  he  cannot  here 
unfold,  and  eyes  of  the  spmt  which  find  no  adequate  field 
.of  vision  here.  He  has  faculties,  capacities,  and  desu'es, 
which  here  seek  in  vain  for  free  scope  and  frill  gratifica- 
tion. He  has  powers  which  here  are  almost  dormant,  like 
the  cramped  pinions  of  the  yet  imprisoned  bird.  He  finds 
the  elements  of  the  material  universe  often  hostile,  always 
unsatisfj-ing.  He  has  hardly  learned  to  adapt  himself  to 
the  workl  in  which  he  is  born,  mdeed  is  less  adapted  to  it 


188  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

than  the  new-born  bee  or  beaver,  when  be  is  summoned  to 
leave  it.  He  lives  and  dies  a  stranger  and  a  pilgi'im  here, 
oftener  in  conflict  than  in  harmony  with  his  surroundmgs, 
oftener  yearning  for  a  loftier  than  contented  with  a  lower 
sphere.  Oui'  intellectual  powders  grasp  at  infinity.  We 
are  conscious  of  a  bomidless  capacity  of  research,  knowl- 
edge, and  progress,  and  our  cuiiosity  grows  faster  than  its 
gi'atification,  our  sense  of  ignorance  faster  than  our  knowl- 
edge. In  no  department  of  life  do  we  ever  reach  our 
aims  or  embody  om-  conceptions.  The  painter  enslu-mes 
in  canvas,  the  sculptor  hews  ft'om  the  marble,  forms  glow- 
ing with  beauty,  redolent  of  purity  and  loveliness,  vividly 
lifelike  to  every  beholder ;  but  he  has  floating  before  his 
mind  visions  of  artistical  perfectness  to  which  he  has 
hardly  begun  to  give  expression.  The  poet,  whose  inspi- 
ration thrills  the  universal  heart,  is  tortm'ed  by  unutterable 
imagmings,  glimpses  of  glory  from  the  parted  heavens, 
which  language  cannot  c»lothe,  aspirations  too  lofty  and 
ardent  to  flow  in  the  broken  harmony  of  earthly  song. 
The  man  of  science  who  transcends  his  fellows  m  his 
sweepmg  generahzations  is  still  unsatisfied;  for  he  con- 
ceives of  profomider  depths,  more  perfect  adaptations, 
broader  harmonies,  more  comprehensive  laws,  than  he  has 
the  means  of  verifyuig,  and  each  new  discovery  that 
dawns  on  his  own  mind  or  is  suggested  by  kindred  spuits 
only  fills  him  with  the  more  earnest  desire  to  bathe  forever 
in  exhaustless  truth.  The  pm'suit  of  happiness,  too,  is 
pursuit,  but  less  and  less  attainment.  Its  fountams  are 
summer-di'ied  or  winter-fi'ozen.  In  the  midst  of  all  that 
can  feast  the  senses  or  minister  to  the  pride  of  life,  there 
is  still  the  inward  craving  for  a  higher,  pm^er  joy.  So  is 
it,  also,  with  the  noblest  of  aims,  that  of  moral  excellence. 
However  exemplary  the  character  may  be,  it  falls  short 


IMMOKTALITY.  189 

of  its  ideal.  The  good  man's  goal  recedes,  his  standard 
grows  higher.  His  endeavors  reach  out  far  beyond  Irs  at- 
tainments, —  the  spmt  willing,  but  the  flesh  weak.  This 
disproportion  between  man  and  liis  condition,  this  constant 
outreaching,  upr^aching,  is  certainly  no  famt  indication  of 
a  future  state,  where  our  conceptions  will  be  realized  and 
our  aspirations  satisfied,  where  our  endeavors  will  over- 
take our  aims,  and  fi-uition  will  answer  to  desire.  It  is 
intrinsically  improbable  that  He,  who  must  love  all  that 
is  noble  m  man  far  more  than  man  can  love  it,  should 
have  implanted  these  tendencies  m  our  bemg  without  pro- 
viding for  their  ultimate  consummation. 

This  argmnent  is  strengthened  when  we  consider  our 
relations  to  the  visible  universe.  "We  are  placed  within 
sight  of  nmuberless  worlds,  and  are  endoAved  ^vith  the 
capacity  of  learning  sometliing  of  their  relations  and  laws, 
but  are  left  m  invincible  ignorance  and  mtense  curiosity 
as  to  all  else  concernmg  them.  Can  it  be  that  a  good 
God  has  opened  this  gorgeous  immensity  of  creation  to 
our  view,  to  close  it  forever  to  our  knowledge  ?  Had  He 
destined  us  to  an  eternal  slumber  in  the  grave,  I  cannot 
but  think  that  He  would  have  enveloped  us  in  a  denser 
atmosphere,  and  not  have  shown  us  other  worlds  than 
our  own. 

We  might  also  infer  a  contmuance  of  life  beyond  death 
from  the  continued  growth  of  the  character  in  extreme 
old  age.  The  moral  principles  and  habits  become  more 
and  more  profomidly  fixed  with  every  added  year  of  a 
long  life,  and  never  appear  more  characteristically  or 
manifest  themselves  in  fuller  vigor  than  in  its  last  days 
and  scenes.  All  those  powers  which  are  related  to  the 
present  state  alone  are  hable  to  declme.  The  perceptive, 
apprehensive,  and  active  organs  and  faculties  lose  their 


190  CHRISTIANITY   THE   RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

quickness  and  keenness.  There  remains  the  wonted  ca« 
pacity  neither  for  business  nor  for  enjoyment.  Yet  there 
may  still  be  increase  of  vh'tue,  a  progressive  refinement 
and  exaltation  of  character,  nay,  often  a  peculiar  ripeness 
and  mellowness,  as  of  fruit  which  grows  luscious  only  as 
it  drinks  in  the  sunbeams  through  the  thinned  leafage  of 
autumn.  Above  all,  love,  which,  the  Christian  writers 
tell  us,  is  to  outlast  faith  and  hope,  to  constitute  the 
essence  of  the  heavenly  life,  to  supersede  by  its  loyal  af- 
finities and  infallible  instincts  the  doubtful  reasonmo;  and 
lame  philosophy  of  this  world,  so  that  knowledge  in  its 
wonted  forms  shall  cease,  to  be  its  own  interpreter  from 
spirit  to  spirit,  so  that  tongues  shall  fail,  —  love,  both  God- 
ward  and  man  ward,  grows  under  the  lengthening  shadows, 
and  is  never  so  radiant  and  genial  as  in  the  latter  days  of 
a  devout  and  kind  pilgrimage.  I  knew  of  an  old  man  of  a 
hundred  and  five  years,  blind  and  deaf,  roused  only  with 
the  utmost  difficulty  to  take  notice  of  the  presence  of  per- 
sons and  objects  around  him,  whose  lips  were  incessantly 
moving  dm'ing  his  waking  hours  in  audible  and  fervent 
praise  and  prayer  ;  and  I  could  number  up  (and  so  could 
some  of  you,  I  doubt  not)  a  goodly  list  of  old  men  and 
women  who  have  seemed  to  belong  more  to  the  heavenly 
society  than  to  the  world  in  which  they  lingered,  and  with 
whom  our  converse  has  been  like  that  of  Bunyan's  Pil- 
gi'im  with  the  Shining  Ones  who  walked  at  times  in  the 
comitry  of  Beulah,  on  the  hither  side  of  the  death-river. 
In  our  domestic  and  social  circles  have  we  not  a  like  expe- 
rience in  the  tender  sympathy,  the  persistent  charity,  the 
forbearing,  forgiving,  exhaustless  affection,  the  intense 
kindliness  of  our  aged  kindred  and  friends,  who  never 
seem  so  dear  as  when  they  are  spared  beyond  the  wonted 
term  of  the  earthly  life  ?     Now  this  growth  of  that  which 


IMMORTALITY.  191 

constitutes  all  moral,  spiritual  vitality,  after  the  law  of 
decrease  has  superseded  that  of  increase  in  everything 
else,  this  culminating  as  one  dechnes,  this  nearing  the 
meridian  of  a  higher  sphere  as  one  approaches  the  earthly 
horizon,  indicates,  as  seems  to  me,  with  clear  and  strong 
emphasis,  the  survivance  of  the  moral  nature  when  dust 
returns  to  dust. 

A  like  inference  may  be  obviously  drawn  from  the 
strength  of  our  specific  attachments  to  individuals.  Is  it 
conceivable  that  God  would  have  made  natural  affection 
so  intense  and  tender,  —  would  have  bomid  heart  with 
heart  by  such  close-clinging  filaments  of  common  feeling, 
—  had  he  not  intended  that  friendship  and  love  should  be 
deathless  ? 

A  strong  argument  for  immortality  is  derived  from  the 
waste  which  we  must  suppose  in  God's  spiritual  universe, 
if  there  be  no  higher  life.  You  know  how  very  large  a 
proportion  of  our  race  die  in  early  infancy,  and  how  many 
more  die  before  they  have  reached  a  maturity  adequate  to 
any  of  the  trusts  or  duties  of  active  life.  Nor  do  I  believe 
that  it  is  a  mere  fancy  that  is  implied  in  the  classic  saying, 
"  Whom  the  gods  love  die  young."  The  very  dehcacy 
of  organization  wliich  attends  and  cherishes  the  richest 
developments  of  mind  and  heart,  and  the  cerebral  fiilness 
and  activity  which  are  often  the  accompaniments  and 
tokens  of  the  most  beautifrd  promise,  with  sad  fi-equency 
are  morbid  indications,  and  give  presage  of  early  death. 
This  is  strange  and  inexplicable,  if  death  be  what  it 
seems.  We  cannot  reconcile  with  God's  perfect  wisdom 
or  with  his  unchanging  goodness  this  wanton  destruction 
of  so  large  a  part  of  the  beauty  and  loveliness,  the  hope 
and  joy,  of  our  race.  But  the  mystery  ceases  when  we 
take  the  hiMier  life  into  our  view.     It  is  natural  that  the 


192  CHRISTIANITY   THE   RELIGION   OF   NATURE. 

frtiit  first  ripe  sliould  be  first  gathered,  —  natural  that  the 
most  hopeful  subjects  of  nui'tui^e  and  mstniction  should  be 
placed  under  conditions  pre-eminently  favorable  to  their 
growth,  —  natural  that  some  at  least  of  the  most  delicate 
and  sensitive  sph'its  should  be  spared  the  imde  vicissitudes 
and  stern  conflicts  through  which  alone  their  eartlily  path 
to  heaven  could  lie. 

A  still  stronger  case  of  waste  is  presented  in  the  lives, 
not  cut  short  in  infancy,  but  developed  and  matm-ed  in 
strength  and  beauty,  yet  with  no  scope  for  earthly  enjoy- 
ment, no  adequate  mode  of  self-expression  or  post  of 
service,  no  experience  save  of  the  obscui'e  and  shady  side, 
the  trial  and  the  bitterness  of  life.  Here,  for  instance,  is 
a  widow,  alone  and  desolate,  sustainmg  her  needy  age  by 
incessant  and  exhausting  toil.  Her  sun  was  darkened  in 
its  very  morning,  her  midway  walk  was  under  gathering 
clouds,  and  they  have  settled  down  upon  her  declining 
years  in  a  density  which  death  alone  can  dissipate.  In 
eveiy  relation  she  has  been  bereaved,  in  every  earthly 
prospect  disappointed.  She  has  hideed  in  her  spirit  been 
strengthened  and  exalted,  and  the  flow  of  her  thoughts  is 
serene  and  heavenly.  She  loves  her  Sa^dom',  and  his  love 
is  the  light  of  her  darkness,  the  joy  of  her  desolation. 
But  with  a  character  richly  trauied  by  this  arduous  disci- 
pline, her  influence  is  but  httle  felt  m  a  very  contracted 
circle.  Spmtually  capable  of  large  useftdness,  she  has 
neither  the  conventional  cultm^e,  the  position,  the  leism-e, 
nor  the  means  for  doing  aught  for  the  service  of  God  and 
man  beyond  the  beautiful  example  of  her  patient  waiting 
and  submissive  trust.  She  has  been  educated  worthily  of 
an  extended  and  lofty  sphere  of  duty ;  she  has  but  the 
narrowest  and  hmnblest.  Yet  God  reigns.  Is  it  possible 
that  her  training  is  to  no  pm'pose  ?  that  she  has  been 


IMMORTALITY.  193 

made  a  sport  for  calamity  with  no  ulterior  prospect  of  a 
condition  worthy  of  her  capacity  and  her  character  ? 
Can  the  extinction  of  being  a^vait  her  at  death  ?  Do  not 
such  instances  (and  they  are  by  no  means  rare)  point  with 
unerring  prophecy  to  a  time  when  God  will  make  up  his 
jewels,  —  when  gems  here  unset  shall  grace  the  dia  lem 
of  the  King  of  kings  ?  Do  they  not  indicate  a  field  of 
duty  for  which  He  is  educatmg  his  most  loyal  servants, 
—  a  charge  adequate  to  the  capacity  so  painfully  brought 
forth  and  perfected,  —  a  stewardship  over  many  things  for 
those  who  have  been  found  thus  faitliful  in  few  things  ? 

I  pass  to  another  argument.  The  strife  among  the  dis- 
ciples of  Jesus  for  the  chief  places  about  then'  Master's 
person  when  he  should  enter  upon  his  kingdom  is  the 
type  of  a  strife  perpetually  waged  m  the  world,  and  which 
has  its  source  in  the  native  and  indestructible  instinct  of 
self-advancement.  It  is  one  of  the  tokens  of  the  imper- 
fection of  this  world,  good  as  it  is,  and  one  of  the  natui'al 
and  perpetual  prophecies  of  immortality,  that  there  are 
not  great  places  enough  here  for  all  who  have  the  capacity 
and  the  desire  to  fill  them,  and,  still  more,  that  what  great 
places  there  are,  are  often  not  filled  by  great  men,  but 
that  there  is  a  pretty  general  misplacing  of  people,  the 
small  in  great  places,  the  great  m  small  places,  as  if  this 
were  a  nursery  of  souls  rather  than  then*  final  home,  ~ 
the  anteroom  in  which  they  are  waiting  to  be  sorted  and 
ranked,  not  the  palace  in  which  they  are  to  assume  their 
several  posts  of  service.  The  world  has  indeed  its  stand- 
ard ;  but  that  standard  is  more  likely  to  be  shortened  to 
the  measure  of  those  below  it,  than  to  be  stretched  to  the 
stature  of  those  above  it.  Some  who  are  not  worthy  of 
the  world  secure  its  favor,  while  those  of  whom  the  world 
is  not  worthy  almost  always  forfeit  its  favor.     Thus  who 

9  M 


194  CHRISTIAXITY  THE   RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

would  have  recognized  as  the  first  man  of  his  age  St. 
Paul,  at  the  wliipping-post,  in  the  stocks,  on  board  the 
prison-ship,  chained  to  two  Roman  soldiers,  his  severed 
head  held  up  for  the  mockeiy  of  a  brutal  populace  ?  Yet 
there  live  many  now  who  think  that  they  see  in  him  a 
gTeater  manhood  than  in  any  being,  the  Heaven-born 
alone  excepted,  who  ever  trod  the  earth.  But  even  this 
posthumous  recognition  is  rare.  Of  those  who  have 
borne  all  the  marks  of  greatness,  how  many  must  there 
have  been  for  whom  there  was  neither  place  in  their  life- 
time, nor  niche  for  then'  names  in  the  memorial  tablet  of 
posterity  !  Most  aptly  does  the  Apostle  compare  this  life, 
with  its  rewards,  to  the  Olpnpic  games,  in  which,  however 
many  competitors  there  might  be,  only  one  received  the 
prize.  Yet  all  rmi.  Distinction,  —  greatness  of  place, 
relative  if  not  absolute,  —  pre-eminence  among  one's  fel- 
lows, is  the  miiversal  ambition.  Almost  all  who  are  not 
sluggards  or  sensualists  have  this  aim,  and  all  other  aims 
resolve  themselves  into  this.  Thus  the  scholar  seldom  so 
loves  learning  for  its  ovm  sake  that  he  does  not  covet  its 
reputation  also.  The  artist,  with  all  his  love  for  the  beau- 
tiftd,  wants  to  make  for  himself  a  name.  The  strife  of  the 
votaries  of  fashion  is  for  leadership,  for  greatness  in  then' 
own  small  way.  The  pursuit  of  wealth  is  less  for  the  sub- 
stance that  it  may  purchase,  than  for  the  place  that  it  may 
give.  Yet  all  these  aims  are,  we  know,  more  likely  to 
fail  than  to  succeed,  and  mmumbered  persons  with  vast 
desires  and  large  endeavors  are  kept  in  or  below  medi- 
ocrity. The  effort,  too,  is  one  of  rivalry,  and  therefore 
has  its  bad  side,  its  mahgnant  aspect.  The  aim  is  to  over- 
top and  outdo  one  another.  The  strife  to  be  the  gi-eatest 
involves  the  endeavor  to  make  others  less ;  for  there  is  no 
high  earthly  platform  on  which  there  is  room  for  more 
than  a  few  to  stand. 


IMMORTALITY.  195 

But  God  cannot  have  made  this  desire  to  excel  an 
indestructible  element  of  our  nature,  without  giving  us 
a  field  for  its  successful  exercise  without  the  passion  of 
emulation  or  rivalry.  It  cannot  be  pre-eminence,  but 
excellence  by  a  positive  standard,  for  which  He  would 
have  us  strive.  There  must  be  somewhere  an  arena  in 
which  all  can  so  run  that  they  may  obtam.  There  must 
be  somewhere  great  places  enough  for  all  who  seek  them. 
But  there  are  not  here.  We  are  constramed,  then,  to 
look  to  the  life  eternal,  where  alone  there  can  be  as  many 
prizes  as  there  are  competitors,  as  many  great  places  as 
there  are  great  souls. 

The  arguments  for  immortality  which  I  have  cited  are, 
I  know  you  will  agi'ee  with  me,  strong,  weighty,  con- 
clusive. They  seem  mdependent  of  revelation.  Yet 
they  are  all  derived  from  Clmstian  culture,  many  of 
them  from  Christian  experience ;  and  they  seem  the 
most  forcefiil  to  those  who  look  primaiily  to  Christ  for 
the  hope  full  of  immortality,  and  then  hear  his  revelation 
echoed  from  nature  and  experience.  And,  more  than  all, 
they  come  to  us  most  genially  in  our  mibm'dened  and 
happy  hom^s.  We  rejoice  in  them  ;  we  are  thankful  for 
them.  But  in  our  times  of  need  and  dread,  in  oui*  de- 
pression and  sorrow,  in  the  hour  of  bereavement  and 
under  the  shadow  of  death,  om*  cry  is,  —  "  Lord,  to  whom 
shall  we  go  ?     Thou  hast  the  words  of  eternal  life." 


I.ECTURE    X. 

CHKISTIAN  MOEALITY. 

Two  years  ago,  my  colleague,  Professor  Peirce,  wlio  in 
his  own  department  has  no  superior  among  living  men, 
delivered  from  this  *platform  a  course  of  Lectm-es,  in 
which  he  constructed  a  theoretical  universe.  He  took 
his  stand  outside  of  the  visible  creation,  assmned  merely 
the  existence  of  brute  matter  and  certain  fundamental 
mathematical  laws,  and  detennined  by  a  masterly  line  of 
a  priori  reasoning  what  the  proportions  and  relations  of  a 
miiverse  constructed  in  accordance  with  those  laws  must 
have  been.  The  result  was  the  comcidence,  point  for 
point,  of  this  universe  of  theory  with  the  actually  existmg 
universe.  Now  imagine  a  being  who  could  occupy  with 
regard  to  the  entire  realm  of  spuitual  existence  the  posi- 
tion which  our  great  mathematician  holds  as  to  the  out- 
wai'd  creation,  —  a  being  of  perfect  moral  wisdom,  —  of 
such  clear  perceptions  of  actions,  then  tendencies,  and 
their  issues  as  mio-ht  suit  our  conventional  idea  of  a  Ga- 
briel,  —  and  let  there  be  propounded  to  him  this  problem : 
"  Given  the  existence  of  God  and  of  a  race  of  intelligent 
moral  beings,  to  construct  on  these  data  a  moral  system, 
which  shall  insure  and  preserve  harmony  and  beneficial 
relations  between  God  and  his  creatures,  as  they  are 
maintained  by  mathematical  laws  between  God  and  his 
worlds."  The  system  which  would  satisfy  the  conditions 
of  tliis  problem  could  be  no  other  than  the  Gospel  of 


CHEISTIAN  MORALITY.  197 

Christ,  not  a  precept,  prohibition,  or  sanction  wanting. 
"Wipe  out  from  the  memory  of  earth  and  heaven  every 
vestige  of  Christ's  hfe  and  teachings,  let  there  be  wholly 
unoccupied  ground  for  a  new  lawgiver,  and  let  one  arise 
of  supreme  and  comprehensive  wisdom,  he  could  do  no 
more  than  repubhsh  the  moral  system  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. Wlio  can  add  to  this  system  ?  or  take  from  it  ? 
What  conceivable  case  of  obligation  is  there  which  it  does 
not  reach  and  meet?  What  conceivable  case  m  which 
departm-e  from  it  is  safe  ?  It  is  not  law  for  man  alone,  — 
it  must  be  law  wherever  being  is.  Range  in  thought 
from  planet  to  planet,  —  imagine  the  forms  and  aspects 
of  life  in  them  all  as  various  as  are  the  combinations  of 
elements  in  their  physical  structure,  or  the  celestial  pano- 
ramas which  make  their  night-seasons  glorious,  —  still  you 
can  imagine  no  other  law.  You  can  conceive  of  no  pos- 
sible condition  in  wliich  the  Sermon  on  the  Momit  would 
not  have  the  same  validity  which  it  has  with  us.  Nor  as 
you  look  into  the  depths  of  eternity  can  you  conceive  of 
a  stage  or  degree  of  progi'ess,  at  which  that  compend  of 
duty  shall  cease  to  be  sole  and  sufficient  law  for  angels 
and  just  men  made  perfect. 

But  fi'om  some  quarters  there  comes  a  comiter-state- 
ment.  Let  us  meet  it.  It  is  said  by  those  who  think  that 
they  have  outgrown  Cluistianity  :  —  "  There  is  noth- 
ing cosmopolitan  in  the  Gospel.  It  is  all  Hebrew,  Jew- 
ish, belonging  to  Christ's  own  age.  He  gave,  mdeed, 
good  advice  for  his  time  ;  but  it  is  only  by  a  pious  sham, 
by  a  well-meant  but  palpable  fiction,  that  we  apply  it  to 
the  nineteenth  centuiy.  In  the  enhanced  compHcations 
and  responsibilities  of  these  modem  times,  we  vii'tually  rec- 
ognize many  laws  of  Juty  that  have  no  counterpart  in  the 
New  Testament.     What,  for  instance,  do  we  find  there 


198  CHRISTIANITY   THE   RELIGION   OF   NATURE. 

of  the  ethics  of  commerce,  or  of  international  relations  ? 
What,  that  shall  be  our  sufficient  and  mfaUible  guide  in 
our  relations  to  negro  slavery  ?  What,  that  shall  strike 
the  just  medium  between  religious  toleration  and  religious 
indifference,  or  between  freedom  of  thought  and  utter- 
ance, and  dangerous  and  reprehensible  license  ?  Is  not 
ethical  science  m  its  natm^e  progTcssive  ?  Have  we  not 
much  clearer  and  larger  views  of  duty  than  we  find  any 
traces  of  in  the  Gospel?  Is  not  this  the  fact,  —  that 
Jesus  was  the  greatest  moral  teacher  of  his  own  age,  but 
that  we  have  outgroTvai  him,  and  could  not  afford  to  go 
back  to  him  ?  " 

I  answer  :  —  By  parity  of  reasonmg,  the  world  has  out- 
grown Euclid's  Elements  of  Geometiy ;  for  m  his  day 
there  was  only  now  and  then  a  field  to  measm-e,  or  an 
altitude  to  determine,  or  some  very  sunple  geometrical 
calculation  to  make,  while  we  are  doing  a  thousand  things 
of  wliich  he  never  dreamed,  such  as  gTading  railways, 
constructing  massive  fortifications,  triangulating  the  sea- 
coast  of  entire  continents.  Yet  in  point  of  fact  Euchd's 
Elements  are  the  geometry  of  om-  time  no  less  than  of  his. 
The  processes  now  performed  are  simply  the  apphcation 
of  the  laAVS  that  have  come  do^Am  to  us  from  him  to  the 
enlarged  and  complicated  demands  of  a  higher  civihzation. 
Without  those  laws  the  problems  before  us  would  be  un- 
manageable. They  are  capable  of  a  practical  solution 
only  by  methods  involved  in  his  treatise,  and  which  he 
would  have  indicated,  had  these  problems  been  proposed 
to  him. 

In  like  manner,  though  there  is  in  the  Gospel  no  state- 
ment of  the  concrete  moral  problems  of  the  nineteenth 
centmy,  the  only  approach  we  make  to  their  solution  is 
by  means  of  the  very  principles  which  Jesus  stated  in 


CHRISTIAN  MORALITY.  199 

theii'  applications  to  the  problems  of  his  day,  and  wliich 
could  have  been  understood  when  he  promulgated  them 
only  through  their  being  thus  applied.  Indeed,  so  far 
are  we  fi'om  having  outgro^vn  the  Gospel,  that  we  still 
fall  very  far  short  of  its  scope,  and  depth,  and  sphituahty. 
The  most  that  we  can  say  is,  that  the  boasted  progress  of 
moral  science  has  been  in  the  direction  of  Christian  moral- 
ity, —  that  there  has  been  a  growmg  tendency  toward 
the  embodiment  of  the  precepts  of  the  Gospel.  In  gov- 
ernment, in  commerce,  in  political  economy,  there  has 
been  what  we  term  a  constant  moral  progress  ever  smce 
the  Protestant  Reformation.  Principles  at  first  the  sub- 
jects of  fierce  controversy  have  surmounted  opposition, 
outlived  dissent,  and  come  to  be  regarded  as  axioms  that 
do  not  admit  of  dispute.  But  when  Ave  examine  any  such 
axiom,  —  the  vaunted  discovery  of  the  present  or  the  last 
generation,  —  we  always  find  that  it  is  as  old  as  the  Gos- 
pel, that  it  fell  perfectly  shaped  fi-om  the  lips  of  Jesus  and 
fomid  explicit  record  from  the  pen  of  the  Evangelists,  and 
that  its  modern  form  is  but  a  translation  of  the  words  of 
Clu-ist  into  scientific  language,  or  an  application  of  some 
broad  principle  of  Christianity  to  some  modem  mode  of 
thought  or  action.  In  all  the  departments  of  concrete 
ethics,  Christianity,  so  far  fr'om  being  outgrown,  is  slowly 
but  surely  working  its  way  into  the  hearts  of  nations,  into 
the  great  heart  of  humanity,  thus  progTessively  ftJfiUing 
the  prediction,  "  Behold,  I  make  all  things  new." 

To  verify  this  view  of  the  Christian  morality  in  all  its 
details,  would  transcend  my  present  limits  ;  I  shall  there- 
fore confine  my  attention  to  the  two  prime  ethical  discov- 
eries or  revelations  of  Christianity,  which  together  cover 
the  whole  of  human  duty,  and  thus  include  the  very- 
details  which  I  have  not  time  to  treat  separately. 


200  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION  OF   NATURE. 

I.  Natural  philosophy  tells  us  that  the  orbits  of  the 
heavenly  bodies  result  from  the  combining  of  two  opposite 
tendencies ;  —  the  centripetal,  by  which  the  satellite  is  at- 
tracted to  its  primary,  the  planet  to  the  sun,  the  system 
to  the  centre  of  gravity  of  the  cluster  to  which  it  belongs ; 
and  the  centriftigal,  by  wtue  of  which  alone  the  sphere 
would  be  hurled  on  its  solitary  and  darkening  path  into 
unknoAvn  depths  of  space,  and  would  be  hable  to  the 
perilous  attraction  or  ruinous  contact  of  its  sister-worlds. 
The  human  soul  is,  by  the  necessity  of  its  bemg,  subject 
to  these  two  opposite  tendencies;  —  the  centripetal,  by 
wliich  it  is  drawn  to  its  Source  and  Author ;  the  centrifu- 
gal, by  which  it  is  made  liable  to  every  form  of  attraction 
and  mfluence  fr'om  its  fellow-beings.  Accordingly,  to  the 
hmnan  conscience  duty  presents  itself  under  these  two 
aspects,  —  that  of  supreme  devotion  to  God,  and  that  of 
paramount  obligation  to  man.  Each  may  be  plausibly 
represented  as  comprising  the  whole  of  duty.  It  may  be 
urged,  on  the  one  hand,  that  He  who  has  made  us  all  that 
we  are,  and  has  given  us  all  that  we  have,  justly  claims  all 
our  thoughts,  all  oui'  powers,  all  our  affections  ;  and  that 
even  the  charities  of  life,  if  they  arrest  our  contemplation 
of  the  Infinite  One,  check  the  flow  of  prayer  and  praise, 
and  mterest  us  in  inferior  bemgs  and  objects,  are  a  rob- 
bery of  God,  a  scantmg  of  the  incense  due  on  his  altar, 
of  the  hving,  perpetual  sacrifice  by  which  alone  we  can 
be  worthy  of  his  love.  On  the  other  hand,  it  may  be 
maintained  that  we  can  neither  enhance  his*  wealth,  nor 
increase  his  happiness,  nor  add  to  his  glory ;  that  the 
needs  and  claims  of  our  fellow-men  are  constant  and 
imperative,  demanding  all  of  time  and  faculty  we  have  ; 
and  that  the  fervor  and  energy  gi^'-en  to  devotion  are 
uselessly,  wrongfiilly,  and  injuriously  abstracted  fr'om  our 
brethren. 


CHEISTIAN  MORALITY.  201 

The  pi-ime  desideratum  in  a  moral  system  is  the  just 
balancmg  of  these  centripetal  and  centrifiigal  forces,  the 
reconciliation,  the  miifying,  of  piety  and  charity,  so  that 
there  shall  be  the  maximimi  of  both,  and  so  that  each 
shall  render  the  other  more  intense  and  fervent.  Tliis  is 
the  first  moral  problem  of  natural  religion,  and  if  Chris- 
tianity alone  solves  it,  then  in  this  respect  Christianity  is 
pre-eminently  natural  rehgion.  Let  us  trace  these  ten- 
dencies separately,  and  then  see  how  they  are  combined 
and  harmonized  in  Christianity. 

We  will  first  trace  the  centripetal  force  unmodified,  — 
the  exclusively  pietistic  theoiy  of  duty,  of  wdiich  we  have 
an  afiluence  of  examples  under  both  Pagan  and  Christian 
auspices.  The  pietistic  impulse  may  be  one  of  fear.  In 
tliis  case  the  devotee  is  haunted  by  a  morbid  consciousness 
of  impurity  and  sin,  —  morhid^  I  say,  for  the  healtliiul 
consciousness  of  personal  delinquency  wliich  we  cannot 
feel  too  profoundly  is  allayed  by  penitence,  and  finds  re- 
course to  the  fomitain  of  forgiveness  opened  in  the  cross 
of  the  world's  Redeemer.  But  the  devotee's  one  idea  is 
propitiation  by  personal  sacrifice  and  suffeiing,  —  the  buy- 
ing off  of  penalty  in  the  world  to  come  by  gratuitous 
tortm^e  sought  and  endm-ed  m  the  present  life.  Under 
this  impulse,  the  Hindoo  has  torn  the  living  flesh  from  liis 
lunbs,  hung  his  quivering  fi-ame  on  hooks  of  steel,  flung 
himself  under  the  car  of  Juggernaut,  or  buried  himself  in 
easier  suicide  under  the  saving  waters  of  the  sacred  river. 
The  Christian  ascetic,  in  the  same  spirit,  has  abjured 
all  the  ties  of  family  and  society,  fed  on  street-ofFal,  hved 
in  booths,  huts,  and  caverns  m  which  he  could  neitlier 
stand  nor  sit,  passed  years  of  vigil  on  pillars,  lacemted  his 
body  mth  the  hair-cloth  and  the  scourge,  com-ted  insult 
and  outrage,  gloried  in  rags,  filth,  and  vemiin.  Not  only 
9* 


202  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

have  such  Hves  been  wasted  as  regards  all  valuable  human 
ends.  They  have  been  worse  than  wasted  as  to  the  very 
end  of  rehgious  culture  to  which  they  might  seem  adapted. 
The  Grod  thus  worshipped  has  been  the  frightful  cliimera 
of  a  disordered  fancy.  All  imaginable  dogmatic  atrocities 
have  had  then-  bu^th  m  these  savage  cells  and  dens.  Man 
learns  to  conceive  worthily  of  God  only  through  human 
relations.  It  is  m  terms  borrowed  from  these  relations 
that  the  Scriptui'es  teach  the  fatherhood  of  God,  and 
unage  the  soul's  espousal  to  her  Redeemer.  It  is  he  who 
hves  pui'ely  and  dutiftiUy  m  these  relations  that  sees  in 
the  hmnan  the  constantly  suggestive  symbol  of  the  Divine, 
and  drinks  m  perpetually  a  strengthening,  gladdening 
feiith  in  his  Father  and  S ardour.  The  ascetic,  in  forfeiting 
the  symbol,  loses  all  sense  of  what  it  signifies,  and  finds 
liis  types  for  the  Di^dnity  in  the  savage  scenes,  loathsome 
endurances,  and  horrible  self-tortures,  which  are  his  tem- 
ple, his  ritual,  and  liis  worship. 

Another  form  of  the  pietistic  impulse  is  engendered  by 
the  action  of  superstitious  belief  on  indolence  and  apathy. 
This  has  frmiished  the  rank  and  file  of  Christian  recluses 
in  all  ages.  The  cloisters  have  been  filled  for  the  most 
part  by  men  and  women  who  might  have  been  stimu- 
lated to  usefiil  mdustry  by  just  views  of  duty,  or  would 
have  been  driven  to  toil  for  their  subsistence,  had  not 
their  laziness  found  sanction  and  support  m  a  false  and 
harmful  charity.  The  best  tiling  that  these  rehgious  re- 
cluses have  been  wont  to  do  is  to  vegetate  m  an  ever 
nearer  approach  to  ichocy,  their  faculties  gradually  rust- 
ing away  by  disuse.  Probably  fi'om  the  very  prayers  and 
litanies  in  wliicli  their  days  drag  out  their  weary  length, 
the  spnitual  element  is  wholly  exhaled  at  a  very  early 
period,  and  the  service  of  the  altar  becomes  as  much  a 


CHRISTIAN  MORALITY.  203 

mere  bodily  exercise  as  that  of  the  refectory.  Where, 
however,  the  appetites  are  strong,  they  avenge  themselves 
for  the  violence  done  to  human  nature  by  subduing  and 
dishonoring  it.  Monasticism  has  been  atrociously  wronged 
whenever  it  has  been  represented  as  the  conscious  and 
willino-  nurse  of  sensuality.  Its  discipline  has  been,  for 
the  most  part,  administered  by  and  upon  either  honest 
and  fervent  ascetics  or  harmless  drones  ;  and  I  cannot 
believe,  without  stronger  evidence  than  the  history  of  thes. 
Chm-ch  gives  us,  that  the  intent  of  evil  has  at  any  time 
mingled  largely  with  the  motives  that  have  led  men  to 
abjui-e  the  hving  world,  which  has  always  offered  too 
many  facihties  for  every  form  of  vice  to  make  a  retreat 
from  it  tempting  to  the  viciously  disposed.  Yet  even 
Montalembert,  the  most  eloquent  among  the  eulogists  of 
monastic  institutions,  admits  that  foul  and  horrible  ex- 
cesses of  gluttony,  drunkenness,  and  sensuahty  of  every 
kind,  have  been  not  infrequent  among  the  cloistered.* 
And  we  should  expect  this  ;  for  idleness  and  an  unoc- 
cupied mind  always  leave  fr'ee  scope  and  frill  sway  for 
all  the  capacity  that  one  has  of  low  appetite  and  brutal 
passion.  Thus  it  is  that  many,  who  began  by  sincerely 
consecrating  a  profitless  life  to  God,  have  passed,  almost 
unconsciously,  to  the  opposite  camp. 

There  remains  yet  another,  the  mystic  type  of  pietism, 
of  which  we  cannot  speak  without  profound  reverence 
for  the  pure  and  noble  spirits  which  it  has  given  to  human- 

*  See  Montalembert,  Les  Moines  d'  Occident^  Introduction,  Chap.  vii.  After 
speaking  of  the  indignant  utterances  against  monastic  abuses  put  by  Dante 
into  the  mouth  of  St.  Benedict  {Paradiso,  Canto  xxii.),  and  of  the  coarse  and 
foul  portraitures  of  depravity  under  the  cowl  which  make  up  the  substance 
of  Boccaccio's  Decamerone,  Montalembert  adds:  "La  con-uption  monastique 
devint  le  lieu  commun  de  la  satire,  en  meme  temps  que  la  matitjre  constaute 
des  doK^ances  trop  l(?gitimes  de  toutes  les  ames  pieuses  comme  des  plus 
hautes  autorit^s  de  I'Eglise." 


204  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

ity.  Yet  even  in  tlieir  case  we  discern  the  need  of  an 
outward  sphere  of  duty  to  check  the  morbid  reaction  fi'om 
a  too  concentrated  gaze  upon  spiritual  reahties,  from  a  too 
continuous  direct  communion  with  God.  There  is  very 
apt  to  grow  up  in  such  souls  an  egotism,  modest  and  hum- 
ble indeed,  yet  engrossing  and  exacting.  They  become 
like  the  hypochondriac  invalid,  who  is  perpetually  feeling 
his  own  pulse.  Painful  and  self-accusing  introspection 
alternates  with  devotion,  and  encroaches  upon  it  more 
and  more.  Gromidless  depression  blends  -wdth  the  flow  of 
pious  thought,  and  imparts  to  it  a  tinge  of  gloom.  The 
records  of  such  lives  leave  a  sad  impression  on  the  reader, 
and  make  us  feel  that,  even  with  the  crowning  grace  of 
sincere  devotion  Godward,  there  is  much  that  contributes 
to  the  strength  and  beauty  of  character  left  mideveloped. 

The  centripetal  tendency  cannot,  then,  in  any  of  its 
exclusive  forms,  commend  itself  to  our  entire  approval, 
even  in  its  religious  aspects. 

Let  us  now  mark  the  working  of  the  centriftigal  ten- 
dency when  not  balanced  by  the  centripetal,  —  of  social 
virtue  when  not  mspired  and  energized  by  piety.  This 
inquiry  is  only  too  timely.  It  is  one  of  the  heresies  of 
our  day  to  estimate  the  traits  and  gifts  of  mmd  and  heart 
by  their  immediate  mechanical  results ;  and  piety,  because 
its  direct  acts  are  not  earthward  and  manward,  because  it 
does  not  visibly  feed  and  clothe  men,  because  it  does  not 
in  its  express  form  go  do^vn  into  the  arena  of  strife  and 
gain,  is  struck  fi*om  the  list  of  utihties,  its  services  deemed 
a  waste,  its  joys  a  delusion.  Yet  I  maintain  that  this, 
and  this  alone,  can  give  strength,  permanence,  and  purity 
to  the  social  virtues,  —  that  the  life  hidden  with  God  is 
identical  with  the  Hfe  that  difluses  blessings  among  men. 
The  fountam  is  fed  from  secret  springs,  and,  when  it  leaps 


CHRISTIAN  MORALITY.  205 

and  bubbles  fresh  and  clear,  indicates  a  source  higher  than 
its  level.  The  navigable  river,  the  fall  that  turns  the  mill- 
wheel,  is  made  deep  and  strong  by  forest-rills  that  carry 
no  freight,  by  mountain-torrents  too  wild  and  vagrant  for 
industrial  uses.  Stop  the  source,  the  fountain  stagnates 
and  dries  up.  Cut  off  the  rill,  the  boat  is  stranded  on 
the  river's  bed.  Arrest  the  torrent,  the  wheel  stands 
still.  Equally  do  what  are  called  the  useftil  virtues 
depend  on  those  which  belong  to  the  interior  life. 

There  is  in  our  day  a  gi'eat  deal  of  professed  philan- 
thropy where  religious  faith  and  reverence  are  wanting. 
But  did  you  ever  know  an  undevout  philanthi'opist  worthy 
of  the  name  ?  These  professed  fi^iends  of  their  race  who 
neglect  the  peculiar  duties  of  religion  are  either  partial  in 
their  charity,  warm  in  some  causes  of  philanthropy  and 
indifferent  or  hostile  to  others ;  or  their  zeal  is  flickering, 
their  torch  a  revolving,  intermittent  light ;  or  else  they 
blend  with  much  that  is  kind  and  generous  a  large  infu- 
sion of  bitterness  and  rancor,  so  that  out  of  the  same 
mouth  proceed  blessing  and  cursing.  Without  love  to 
God,  love  to  man  grows  languid.  What  was  heart-work 
at  the  outset  soon  lapses  into  tongue-work  or  hand- work ; 
and  as  tongue  or  hand  for  lack  of  heart  gi-ows  weary,  it 
either  siiiks  into  utter  inertness,  or,  if  kept  in  motion  by 
habit  or  pressure  from  without,  it  pursues  its  routine 
pee^ashly  and  fretftilly,  because  reluctantly.  There  is  no 
more  pitiable  or  noxious  being  than  the  godless  philan- 
thropist. The  men  who  forsake  and  scorn  the  altar  are 
the  very  men  who  make  philanthropy  a  hissing  and  a  by- 
word, who  cast  reproach  on  the  hohest  causes,  who  thwart 
the  sincere  benevolence  of  multitudes  that  would  gladly 
do  all  they  can  for  their  race,  who  by  their  denuncia- 
tions   and    anathemas    keep    back    the   sober    and   self- 


206  CHRISTIANITY  THE   RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

respecting  from  fields  of  effort  in  wliicli  tliey  would  re- 
joice to  labor. 

We    have   thus   seen   that   of  these    two    tendencies 
of  character   neither  can  be  suffered   to   prevail  to  the 
exclusion  of  the  other,   without   mjurious   results,  nay, 
more,   without  failure  of  the  very  end  pursued,  —  the 
mere    devotee   being   dv/arfed  or  distorted  m   his  rehg- 
ious    development,    the    mere '  philanthropist    losing    his 
capacity  of  usefalness.     Yet  before   Jesus   Clnist   none 
knew  that  piety  and  charity  were  essential  to  each  other, 
inseparable    alhes,    neither   capable    of  subsistmg   apart. 
Such  was  the  law  of  nature,  and  truly  good  men  had 
lived  by  this  law,  yet  without  knowing  it,  just  as  men 
for  several  thousand  years  had  experienced  the  phenom- 
ena of  the  earth's  rotation  and  revolution  mthout  any 
conception  of  them.     Christianity  is  not  peculiar  in  en- 
joining piety,   or   in   inculcating  charity ;  for   both   had 
formed  a  part  of  the  better  ethical  systems  of  the  ancient 
world.     But  it  was  and  is  peculiar  in  miiting  the  two,  in 
affirming  the   one  to  be   dependent  on  and  mseparable 
from  the  other,  and  in  placing  that  first  which  is  first  in 
the  nature  and  necessity  of  things,  and  without  which  the 
second  cannot  be.     When  Jesus  Christ  announced  as  the 
first  and  great  commandment,  "  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord 
thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,"  and  declared  the  second, 
"  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself,"  to  be,  not 
separate  fr'om  it,  not  independent  of  it,  not  the  opposite 
pole  of  duty,  but  "  like  unto  it,"  he  proclaimed  the  Inost 
momentous  discovery  ever  made  in  moral  science,  —  a 
discovery  that  bears  the   same  relation  to  the  spiritual 
world  which  the  discovery  of  universal  gravitation  bears 
to  the  material  universe. 

You  will  remember  how  this  union  constitutes  the  key- 


CHRISTIAN  MORALITY.  207 

stone  of  tlie  New  Testament  morality,  how  constantly 
religious  and  social  duty  are  united  in  the  teachings  of 
Christ,  and  how  their  identity  forms  the  entire  burden 
of  that  tender,  loving  epistle  of  St.  John. 

But,  as  Jesus  says,  the  love  of  God  must  come  first. 
Without  it,  there  may  be  a  certain  amount  of  good-doing, 
under  the  impulse  of  transient  enthusiasm,  from  the  im- 
itative instmct  which  makes  certain  modes  of  beneficence 
fashionable,  or  from  party  spirit,  which  often  confers  mate- 
rial relief  or  comfort  in  an  utterly  malignant  temper  ;  but 
there  can  be  no  broad,  persistent,  long-suifering  love  of 
man.  For  of  those  who  most  need  our  love,  how  many 
are  there  who  present  in  themselves  nothing  on  which  it 
can  lay  hold  !  Think  you  that  the  first  missionaries  to 
the  Malays,  and  Hottentots,  and  New-Zealanders,  who 
attested  their  love  for  them  by  untold  sacrifices  and  suf- 
ferings, saw  anything  to  love  in  those  fierce  and  truculent 
savages,  in  those  grinning,  ape-like  negroes,  in  those  can- 
nibals hungering  for  their  flesh,  —  in  those  vile  kennels 
and  rubbish-heaps  of  humanity  ?  No.  But  as  we  should 
follow  up  with  our  kindest  offices  a  degraded  and  seem- 
ingly worthless  brother  of  a  very  dear  friend,  should  look 
on  that  brother  Avith  our  friend's  eyes,  should  believe  that 
there  was  in  him  worth  or  the  capacity  of  it  because  our 
fi'iend  thought  so,  and  should  for  our  friend's  sake  take  a 
sincere  interest  in  him,  so  our  love  to  God  will  reveal  to 
us  the  precious  in  man  however  degraded  and  imbruted, 
will  make  us  love  him  for  God's  imao;e  in  him  though  it 
be  obscured  and  defaced,  and  will  sustain  us  in  every 
effort  and  sacrifice  that  may  help  to  repair  the  temple  in 
mins,  and  to  cleanse  the  sacred  image  fi'om  its  foul  and 
noisome  incrustations. 

How  perfect  is  the  union  of  these  two  principles  in  the 


208  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF  NATUBE. 

life  of  Clmst,  —  a  life  literally  in  the  bosom  of  tlie  Father, 
a  life  consecrated  in  its  entii*eness  to  loving  offices  among 
the  needy,  the  suffering,  the  gnilty,  the  abandoned,  — 
the  night-watches  sequestered  from  the  repose  of  the  toil- 
worn  body  for  the  profounder  rest  of  lonely  prayer,  the 
days  so  crowded  with  words  and  works  of  mercy  that 
some  of  them  of  which  we  can  trace  the  record  might 
seem  to  have  been  preternaturally  lengthened !  Since 
his  time,  and  in  his  spirit,  all  the  great  workers  for  hu- 
manity have  been  as  fervent  in  then-  devotion  as  they 
have  been  energetic  m  then'  labor  of  love.  No  matter  in 
what  department  of  philanthropic  service,  —  whether  it 
is  Howard  so  engrossed  with  the  prisons  that  he  has  no 
time  to  look  at  the  palaces  and  cathedrals  of  Continental 
Europe,  or  Judson  coming  his  whole  noble  being  into 
labors  and  sacrifices  for  benighted  Bui-mah,  or  Cheverus, 
with  refinement  and  culture  that  would  have  graced  a 
comt,  builduig  the  fire  and  making  the  gruel  for  the  sick 
poor  in  loathsome  Broad-Street  cellars,  or  Charles  Wesley 
poinding  forth  those  sweet  redemption-songs  whose  Sab- 
bath strains  echo  romid  the  world,  or  Arnold  maugii- 
rating  a  new  era  of  Christian  education,  and  impartmg 
impulses  that  will  be  felt  longer  than  his  name  will  be 
spoken  among  men,  —  wherever  there  is  an  energy  of 
love  that  thrills  through  all  hearts,  and  commands  mii- 
versal  reverence  and  sympathy,  there  too  is  an  equal 
energy  of  piety.  Not  a  throb  of  Idndly  feehng  pulses  for 
a  fellow-man,  that  mounts  not  first  to  God,  and  tlu'ough 
him  descends  in  blessing.  Not  a  wave  of  sympathy  rolls 
in  upon  the  stricken  heart,  that  flows  not  first  to  the 
Majesty  on  high,  thence  refluent  earthward.  Not  a  cord 
of  benign  mfluence  is  thrown  around  the  degraded  and 
the  guilty,  that  has  not  its  attachment  and  its  purchase  on 
the  eternal  throne. 


CHEISTIAN  MORALITY.  209 

II.  There  is  another  moral  problem,  to  which  I  would 
invite  your  attention,  and  which  will  occupy  the  remain- 
der of  the  present  Lecture.  There  is  at  first  view  an 
irreconcilable  antagonism  between  self-love  and  benefi- 
cence. Self-love  is  inevitable ;  beneficence  is  a  manifest 
duty.  But  if  we  love  om'selves,  how  can  we  rob  our- 
selves of  time,  reputation,  ease,  or  money  for  the  good  of 
others  ?  If  we  are  beneficent,  how  can  we  be  otherwise 
than  false  to  that  law  of  our  very  natures  which  uro-es 
upon  us  a  primary  reference  to  our  own  ha2:)piness  ?  I 
cannot  find  that  this  problem  was  -solved  by  any  moralist 
before  Christ.  Beneficence  was  indeed  inculcated  before 
Christ,  but  as  a  form  of  self-renunciation,  not  as  returninsr 
a  revenue  to  the  kind  heart  and  the  generous  hand. 
Yet  here  Christ  plays  a  bold  stroke.  His  precepts  are 
fldl  of  philanthropy.  They  prescribe  the  utmost  measure 
of  toil  and  sacrifice  for  humanity.  They  constram  the 
disciple  to  call  nothing  his  own  which  others  really  need, 
—  to  hold  all  that  he  has  subject  to  perpetual  di'afts  fi'om 
those  who  can  claim  his  sympathy.  Yet  Christ  is  so  far 
from  dishonoring  and  denouncing  self-love,  that  he  cher- 
ishes it  without  imposing  or  suggesting  a  limit  to  it,  nay, 
makes  the  cherishing  of  it  a  duty  and  a  measm-e  of  the 
seemmgly  antagonistic  duty,  miplying  that,  the  more  we 
love  om-selves,  the  gi^eater  will  be  the  amount  of  the  good 
we  do  to  others.  His  fimdamental  law  for  the  social  life 
stretches  the  uniting  wire  between  these  opposite  poles, 
and  transmits  from  each  to  the  other  the  current  of  per- 
sonal and  social  obligation,  making  duty  interest,  and 
interest  duty.  The  precept,  "  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neigh- 
bor as  thyself,"  is  simply  absurd,  if  the  imagined  antago- 
nism is  real.  But  if  these  two  principles,  in  fonn  mutu- 
ally hostile,  are  in  fact  kindred  and  mutually  convertible, 

N 


210  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

SO  that  each  does  the  other's  work,  it  must  be  by  means 
of  springs  and  wheels  which  nnderhe  them  both  and  the 
whole  fabric  of  society,  and  which  are  kept  in  perpet- 
ual tension  and  motion  by  an  omnipresent  providence. 
Either  this  coincidence  of  self-love  and  beneficence  is  a 
law  of  nature,  or  it  is  a  contradiction  in  terms  and  an  im- 
possibihty  in  action.  Let  us  consider  how  far  it  is  a  law 
of  nature. 

Look,  first,  at  international  relations.  Unenlightened 
national  self-love  dictates  war  on  the  most  trivial  pretexts, 
quick  resentment,  prompt  revenge,  bold  aggression,  the 
preying  of  the  strong  upon  the  feeble.  But  if  history 
has  taught  any  lesson,  it  has  taught  the  inexpediency  and 
folly  of  needless  war,  even  when  most  successful,  and  the 
expediency  of  peace  at  all  sacrifices,  and  of  mutual  good 
offices  among  the  nations.  Nor  has  the  lesson  failed  of 
reception.  Though  pecuhar  circmustances  have  led,  within 
the  hfetime  of  the  present  generation,  to  two  of  the  great- 
est international  wars  on  record,  and  though  the  grand 
pohce-movement  of  our  government  for  the  suppression 
and  punishment  of  treason  has  assumed  the  form  of  a 
gigantic  war,  a  change  has  already  taken  place  in  the 
policy  of  the  civilized  world.  There  have  been  numerous 
instances,  of  late  years,  in  which  controversies  that  half 
a  century  ago  could  have  been  settled  only  by  armies 
have  been  adjusted  by  peaceful  negotiation  or  arbitration; 
and  it  is  distinctly  seen  on  all  hands  that  a  generous,  for- 
bearing, long-suffering  course  in  cases  of  international 
controversy  is  alone  consistent  ^vith  the  welfare  and  pro- 
gress of  a  state. 

A  similar  change  has  taken  place  in  the  commercial 
relations  of  the  civilized  world.  In  the  ignorant  infancy 
of  modern  commerce  the  reigning  doctrine  was,  that  the 


CHRISTIAN  MORALITY.  211 

surplus  of  the  specie  imported  over  that  exported  deter- 
mined the  balance  of  trade  in  favor  of  a  nation,  so  that  by 
any  specific  commercial  arrangement  one  party  must  be 
the  gainer,  the  other  the  loser.  Thus  the  sole  effort  of 
diplomatists  was  to  outwit  one  another,  and  to  throw  dust 
into  one  another's  eyes  ;  and  as  to  mercantile  matters, 
nations  occupied  a  position  of  mutual  antagonism,  each 
loolving  for  gain  only  at  the  expense  of  the  other.  This 
notion  is  now  entirely  exploded,  and  the  principle  is  fully 
estabhshed,  that  between  two  nations  no  commercial 
arrangement  can  be  advantageous  to  one  party  wliich  is 
not  so  to  both,  that  vi7'tual  reciprocity  (which  often  differs 
widely,  as  in  some  instances  oui*  country  has  learned  to 
its  cost,  fi'om  literal  reciprocity)  is  the  true  basis  of  trea- 
ties, and  that  the  enhanced  prosperity  of  any  one  of  the 
family  of  nations  only  offers  an  enlarged  market  for  the 
industry  and  an  expanded  scope  for  the  commerce  of  every 
other.  Thus,  though  commerce  seems  an  intensely  selfish 
transaction,  it  is  now  gii'dling  the  earth  with  the  zone  of 
common  interest,  mutual  good-will,  and  reciprocal  help- 
fulness. 

Among  members  of  the  same  community  I  know  of 
nothing  that  illustrates  the  concurrent  tendency  and  har- 
monious working  of  self-love  and  mutual  benevolence  so 
strongly  and  beautifldly  as  the  system  of  insurance.  At 
first  thought,  the  appeal  to  the  self-love  of  the  uninjured 
as  a  resource  against  calamity  might  seem  the  height  of 
absurdity,  and  the  inscription,  "Bear  ye  one  another's 
burdens,"  placed  over  the  office  of  a  joint-stock  company, 
might  look  like  bitter  irony.  Yet  what  but  such  an 
appeal  is  the  advertisement  of  an  insurance  company? 
What  more  fittino-  motto  could  an  insurance  office  bear  ? 
This  method  of  selfish  benevolence,  of  philanthropic  self- 


21*2  CHRISTIANITY   THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

love,  is  already  applied  to  tlie  risks  of  fire,  stoiin,  and 
shipwreck,  of  sickness  and  death,  and  the  extension  of  it 
to  debts,  contracts,  suretysliips,  and  other  transactions  in 
which  a  crushingly  heavy  burden  is  often  thrown  upon  an 
individual,  has  been  hopefully  projected,  so  that  in  due 
tune  every  calamity  which  can  have  its  force  broken  by 
di^dsion  will  be  thus  dispersed  by  the  beneficent  working 
of  pure  self4ove,  —  by  a  system  into  which  no  man  enters 
except  for  his  own  benefit,  yet  mto  which  no  man  can 
enter  without  becoming  a  public  benefactor.  This  kuidly 
agency,  by  which  disasters  that  would  overwhelm  and 
ruin  the  individual  are  drawn  off  and  scattered  over  a 
whole  community  with  a  pressure  which  none  can  seri- 
ously feel,  might  remind  one  of  what  takes  place  in  a 
thmider-storm,  when  every  twig  of  every  tree  and  every 
angle  of  every  moistened  roof  helps  to  lead  harmlessly 
to  the  ground  the  electric  force  which,  discharged  at  any 
one  point,  would  deal  desolation  and  death. 

We  may  trace  this  same  harmony  between  self-love 
and  benevolence  in  the  relations  and  intercourse  of  ordi- 
nary hfe.  We  have  heard  a  great  deal  at  times  —  I 
think  that  the  phraseology  has  grown  obsolete  now,  but  it 
was  rife  when  the  Carlylese  patois  used  to  be  spoken  in 
cultivated  cii'cles  —  about  whole  men,  and  the  necessity 
of  every  man's  being  a  whole  man,  in  himself  complete, 
self-sufficing,  and  independent.  There  never  was  such  a 
man,  and  never  will  be  ;  and  were  there  such  a  man,  he 
would  be  as  fair  a  specimen  of  humanity  as  one  would  be 
as  to  his  physical  nature  who  lacked  hands,  or  feet,  or 
even  head.  We  are  by  nature  the  complements  of  one 
another.  We  cannot  help  leaning  and  depending  on  one 
another.  We  are  YskQ  trees  in  a  forest,  each  sheltered 
and  fostered  by  its  neighbor-trees,  and  hable  to  speedy 


CHEISTIAN  MOKALITY.  213 

blighting  when  transplanted  to  a  solitary  exposure.  Our 
social  natures  are  as  truly  a  part  of  themselves  as  our 
physical  natui-es;  our  affections,  as  our  appetites;  our 
domestic  and  civil  relations,  as  our  subjection  to  the  laws 
of  matter  and  of  mind.  The  man  whom  we  term  selfish 
consults  the  needs  of  only  an  insignificant  fi-action  of  him- 
self. The  self-seeker  (so  called)  leads  a  life  of  perpetual 
self-sacrifice  and  self-denial.  He  alone  who  benefits  his 
neighbor  does  well  for  himself.  He  alone  who  does  good 
gets  good.  He  alone  who  makes  the  world  the  happier 
and  the  better  by  his  hving  m  it,  becomes  happier  and 
better  by  living  in  it. 

Thus  we  see  that  in  the  essential  constitution  of  nations, 
communities,  and  the  mdividual  soul,  self-love  and  mutual 
benevolence,  so  far  fi'om  being  antagonistic  principles,  are 
in  perfect  harmony,  verifying  the  words  of  St.  Paul, 
"  The  members,  bemg  many,  are  one  body ;  and  whether 
one  member  suffer,  all  the  members  suffer  with  it,  or  one 
member  be  honored,  all  the  members  rejoice  with  it." 

You  will  not  mismiderstand  me  with  reference  to  this 
matter.  I  by  no  means  represent  selfishness  as  a  motive 
to  benevolence ;  nor  are  those  outwardly  kind  acts  which 
are  performed  at  the  bidding  of  selfishness  to  be  regarded 
as  benevolent.  Yet  the  highest  benevolence  is  the  high- 
est self-love.  Let  me  take  a  case  familiar  no  doubt  to 
some  of  my  hearers,  that  of  the  missionary  Boardman, 
and  let  me  trace  rapidly  his  career.  He  leaves  the  most 
flattering  prospects  near  his  native  home.  He  crosses 
more  than  half  the  globe  to  toil  for  a  race  which  proffers 
no  hold  on  his  aesthetic  sensibilities,  but  whose  only  claim 
is  its  igTiorance  and  wretchedness.  He  seeks  out  scattered 
hamlets  in  the  almost  impenetrable  jmigles  and  momitain- 
clefls   of   Burmah,    and   crosses   swollen    torrents,   arid 


214  CHRISTIANITY   THE   RELIGION   OF   NATURE. 

wastes,  and  rocky  passes  hardly  trodden  but  by  beasts  of 
prey.  His  vigorous  fi-ame  yields  to  perpetual  and  unrest- 
ing labor.  The  hectic  flush  of  approaching  death  deepens 
day  by  day,  but  he  pauses  not  on  his  errands  of  mercy. 
His  limbs  refuse  their  office ;  still,  "  borne  of  four,"  like 
the  paralytic  in  the  Gospel,  he  carries  fi-om  village  to  vil- 
lage the  message  of  redeeming  love.  With  the  last  sands 
of  his  life  there  is  still  a  distant  group  of  converted  savages 
^vaiting  to  be  baptized  mto  the  Christian  fold,  and  through 
incredible  fatigue  he  presses  on  to  meet  them.  He  pre- 
sides at  the  service,  welcomes  the  proselytes  to  liis  own 
blessed  faith,  pours  forth  for  them  his  fervent  exhortations 
and  the  prayers  so  soon  to  be  merged  in  the  worship  of 
the  heavenly  temple.  He  dies  conqueror  on  the  blood- 
less field,  the  laui'els  of  man's  noblest  victory  crowning 
his  fevered  brow,  and  encu'cling  his  memory  with  a  glory 
that  time  can  never  efface.  Now  in  all  this  there  was  no 
self-renunciation,  but  an  enlarged  and  enlightened  self- 
love,  —  the  love  of  a  self  complete  and  perfect,  —  of  a 
self  in  those  relations  with  universal  humanity  for  which 
we  are  all  created  and  destined,  —  of  the  immortal  self 
which  seizes  its  heavenly  bhthright,  which  knows  the 
steps  by  which  it  is  to  mount  on  high,  which  cannot  be 
content  with  any  inferior  and  transient  good  while  the 
supreme  and  everlasting  good  is  within  its  reach. 

My  argument  is  this  :  I  am  attempting  to  illustrate  the 
identity  of  Christianity  wi^h  the  rehgion  of  natm-e,  and 
thus  to  prove  that  Christianity  can  have  had  no  other  au- 
thor than  the  Author  of  nature.  Nations,  commmiities, 
individual  men,  only  in  these  latter  days  are  beginnmg 
to  perceive  the  coincidence  of  self-love  with  benevolence, 
of  the  individual  good  with  the  general  good.  So  far  as 
observation  and  reasonmg  are  concerned,  it  is  wholly  a 


CHRISTIAN   MORALITY.  215 

discovery  of  modern  times ;  but  it  is  a  discovery  of  what 
always  was  and  must  ever  be,  —  of  what  lies  in  the  essen- 
tial constitution  of  human  nature  and  society.  Far  back 
in  barbarous  antiquity  this  coincidence  is  dimly  and  par- 
tially shadowed  in  the  Pentateuch.  In  the  teachings  of 
Jesus  Christ  it  is  made  the  basis  of  social  morality,  and 
underlies  his  entire  code  of  duty  between  man  and  man. 
So  many  centuries  before  human  philosophy  and  conscious 
experience  began  to  verify  this  truth,  it  can  have  been 
derived  only  by  revelation  from  Him  who  knew  fr-om  the 
beginning  what  is  in  man. 


LECTURE    XI. 

THE  NATUEAL  RELIGION   OF  THE   STATE. 

As  my  course  approaches  its  termination,  I  am  op- 
pressed by  the  multitude  of  topics  that  claim  om-  atten- 
tion, or  would  reward  our  inquiry.  Among  these  I  have 
chosen  for  the  present  Lectm-e  the  Natural  Religion  of 
the  State,  —  of  government,  of  man's  political  relations. 
In  pursuance  of  the  plan  which  I  annomiced  in  my  first 
Lecture,  and  have  kept  steadily  in  view,  I  shall  attempt 
to  legitimate  on  grounds  of  natural  right  the  foundation- 
principles  of  political  society  propounded  by  revelation. 
In  announcing  the  subject  of  this  evening,  I  can  hardly 
need  to  say  that  I  am  among  those  who  find  in  the  Bible 
not  only  the  way  out  of  this  world,  but  the  way  in  it,  — 
not  only  preparation  for  a  higher  sphere  of  being,  but  the 
principles  on  which  alone  individual,  domestic,  social,  and 
national  life  can  be  so  ordered  upon  the  earth  as  to  secui'e 
the  maximum  of  benefit  and  happiness. 

It  is  amono;  the  discoveries  of  modern  botanists,  that  the 
plant  is  built  up  solely  by  the  multiphcation  of  primitive 
cells,  which  contain  in  their  microscopic  proportions  the 
characteristic  properties  of  the  completed  organism.  With 
reference  to  human  society  a  similar  discovery  was  an- 
nounced in  the  Decalogue,  and  confirmed  by  Jesus 
Christ.  I  refer  to  the  precept,  "  Honor  thy  father  and 
thy  mother,  that  thy  days  may  be  long  in  the  land  which 
the   Lord    thy   God   giveth   thee."     This  last  clause,   a 


THE  NATURAL  EELIGION   OF   THE   STATE.  217 

moment's  examination  will  show  yon,  is  not  the  promise 
of  a  long  life  to  a  good  son,  but  of  long  national  life  to  a 
nation  of  good  sons.  The  Decalogue  is  addressed  to  the 
people  taken  collectively,  —  "  Hear,  O  Israel  "  ;  and  this 
precept  denotes,  "  Do  you,  as  a  people,  cultivate  fihal 
reverence  and  piety,  that  you  may  long  live  in  prosperity 
in  your  land."  The  command  in  itself  is  not  strange  ; 
but  the  announcement  in  connection  with  it  of  so  recon- 
dite, yet  so  essential  a  maxim  of  political  philosophy,  — 
a  truth  fundamental  indeed,  yet  hardly  recognized  even 
now,  —  indicates  a  wisdom  far  beyond  that  rude  age  and 
people,  and  certainly  gives  no  slight  color  of  probability  to 
the  belief  that  God  spake  those  words  which  have  come 
down  to  us  as  the  law  given  on  Mount  Sinai.  Here  then 
is  the  foundation-truth  of  the  politico-religious  system  of 
the  Bible.  Let  us  see  how  far  it  is  verified  in  the  ex- 
perience of  mankind. 

The  state  is  but  an  aggregation  of  smaller  communi- 
ties ;  and  they  are  but  aggregations  of  the  little  groups  of 
human  beings  that  dwell  in  separate  homes.  The  true 
organization  of  the  state  is  analogous  to  that  of  the  family. 
The  achninistration  of  both  is  in  theory  alike  paternal ;  its 
ends  are  protection  and  order.  The  duties  of  the  citizen 
correspond  to  those  of  the  child.  They  are  submission 
and  obedience,  with  no  other  limits  than  those  which 
should  restrain  the  child,  namely,  the  carefully  considered 
voice  of  conscience  and  the  express  law  of  God.  The 
child  may  not  commit  theft  or  utter  falsehood  at  the 
parent's  command  ;  but  within  the  entire  range  of  things 
not  absolutely  wrong  he  is  bound  to  obedience,  however 
unpalatable  or  irksome.  In  like  manner,  the  citizen  may 
not  commit  what  he  knows  to  be  morally  wrong  at  the 
bidding  of  the  state  ;  but  there  is  no  extent  to  which, 
10 


218  CHRISTIANITY   THE   RELIGION   OF   NATURE. 

witMn  the  limits  of  the  right,  he  is  not  bomid  to  act  b 
opposition  to  his  own  wish,  judgment,  and  interest,  for  the 
sake  of  loyalty  to  the  government  and  order  in  the  state. 
Nay,  more,  as  the  child,  if  his  conscience  will  not  let  him 
obey  his  parent,  is  bound  to  yield  to  the  penalty  of  dis- 
obedience, and  to  honor  by  his  submission  and  suffering 
the  parental  authority  whose  command  conflicts  for  the 
moment  with  a  higher  obhgation,  so  the  only  safe  rule  for 
the  citizen  mhibited  by  an  enhghtened  conscience  from 
complying  with  the  requisition  of  the  state  is  for  him  to 
accept  its  penalty,  —  a  rule  commended  to  us  by  apostohc 
example,  and  by  the  sacrifice  and  suffering  of  the  all-per- 
fect Saviour. 

Nor  is  our  strictly  fihal  relation  to  government  modified 
by  repubhcan  institutions,  under  which  each  man  holds 
a  portion  of  the  sovereignty.  The  free  citizen's  acts  of 
sovereignty  are  few,  smiple,  and  definite.  They  are  con- 
fined to  his  exercise  of  the  right  of  suffi.'age,  his  appropri- 
ation of  the  means  requisite  to  enable  him  to  exercise  that 
right  intelligently,  and  his  free  expression  of  opinion  as  to 
pubhc  men  and  measures.  In  everything  else  he  is  as 
much  a  subject  bound  to  implicit  obedience  as  if  he  were 
under  a  despotism.  True,  it  demands  a  peculiarly  clear 
moral  discernment  and  active  moral  sense  for  one  to  be 
alternately  sovereign  and  subject,  —  parent  and  child  m 
the  great  national  family.  Therefore,  for  the  citizens  of  a 
republic  is  the  fihal  piety  enjoined  in  the  commandment 
I  have  cited  pre-eminently  the  natural  religion  of  the 
state  ;  for  citizens  will  be  for  the  most  part  what  they 
have  been  trained  to  be  as  children.  You  probably  never 
knew  a  demagogue,  a  factious,  brawling  pohtician,  one 
who  despised  laws  and  loved  to  defame  rulers,  who  was 
not  a  stubborn  son,  a  weariness  to  his  father,  and  a  per- 
petual grief  to  his  mother. 


THE  NATUEAL   RELIGIOX   OF   THE   STATE.  219 

Our  Pui'itan  ancestors  and  the  colonists  from  tlie  Old 
World  in  general  brought  to  our  shores  the  ancient  no- 
tions of  rigid  i^imily  discipline.  Unquestioning  obedience 
was  the  law  and  the  habit  of  their  households.  Way- 
ward children  fared  worse  with  the  early  magistrates  of 
N^.w  England  than  the  majority  of  thieves  and  murderers 
fare  now  ;  for  filial  contumacy  or  iiTeverence  was  then 
regarded  as  "an  iniquity  to  be  punished  by  the  judges." 
Thence  sprang  that  pervading  spirit  of  order,  which  in 
the  last  century  sur\dved  the  breaking  up  of  old  institu- 
tions, which  for  the  most  part  quietly  awaited  the  forma- 
tion of  our  State  and  national  governments,  and  then 
peacefully  transferred  its  former  allegiance  to  the  newly 
constituted  authorities.  It  was  home-born  habits  alone 
that  kept  the  nation  out  of  the  whirlpool  of  anarchy  dur- 
ing the  Revolutionary  conflict,  when  the  State  govern- 
ments really  had  very  Httle  power,  nay,  an  existence  so 
precarious  that  any  extensive  outbreaking  of  the  mob- 
spirit  would  have  crushed  them.  And  had  not  the  sol- 
diers of  the  Revolution  been  for  the  most  part  trained  in 
well-ordered  famihes,  they  never  would  have  laid  down 
their  arms,  unpaid  except  in  what  they  deemed  worth- 
less paper,  but  would  have  levied  their  hard-earned  wages 
on  the  goods  of  the  unarmed,  and,  not  suffering  them- 
selves to  be  foiled  by  the  impregnable  vu'tue  of  their  com- 
mander-in-chief, would  have  elevated  some  unscrupulous 
soldier  of  fortune  to  the  headship  of  a  mihtaiy  despotism. 

The  condition  of  things  has  sadly  changed  within  the 
lifetime  of  the  present  generation.  Laws  have  been  per- 
petually nullified.  Our  legislative  halls  have  often  wit- 
nessed outrages  that  would  disgrace  an  arena  of  prize- 
fighters. Mobs  have  not  infi'equently  taken  the  law 
into  their  own  hands,  and  have   been  abetted   in  their 


220  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

viol3nce  by  men  of  conspicuous  social  and  political  stand- 
ing. And  am  I  not  justified  in  saying  that  such  disorders 
have  sprung  from  lax  domestic  discipline,  —  from  homes 
where  children  have  borne  sway,  and  their  parents  have 
served  them  ?  It  was  homes  organized  and  governed  after 
the  divinely  prescribed  pattern  that  alone  made  a  repub- 
lic possible  on  tliis  Western  Continent;  and  if  the  old 
domestic  regime  is  to  be  permanently  reversed,  if  the 
elder  are  to  serve  the  younger,  if  the  whims  of  childhood 
and  the  caprices  of  youth,  instead  of  the  wisdom  of  mature 
experience,  are  to  govern  our  famihes,  the  days  of  our 
republic  are  numbered,  and  are  drawing  to  a  close.  Un- 
discipHned  homes  will  throw  the  state  into  anarchy  ;  and 
the  world  will  have  to  wait  for  a  successful  repubhcan 
experiment  till  there  shall  be  a  nation  that  obeys  the 
precept,  and  can  claim  the  promise,  of  the  fifth  command- 
ment of  the  Decalognie. 

In  this  connection  permit  me  to  say  a  word  of  the 
present  rebelhon.  The  conflict  is  not  between  govern- 
ment and  goveniment,  but  between  anarchy  and  order. 
Slavery,  its  salient  cause,  inflicts  no  e^dl  so  great  as  in 
subverting  the  natural  order  of  the  family,  —  in  making 
children  despots  at  the  very  age  when  they  should  be 
learnmg  lessons  of  submission  and  obedience.  A  slave- 
holding  population  cannot  be  the  nui'sery  of  good  sub- 
jects. The  present  outbreak  had  its  preparation  and 
prophecy,  first,  m  domestic  insubordination,  then  and 
thence  in  those  habits  of  private  revenge  and  lawless 
violence  which  were  sapping  the  fomidations  of  society, 
and  which  have  only  reached  their  necessary  and  legiti- 
mate issue  in  a  war  aimed  nominally  against  the  authority 
of  the  United  States,  but  vfrtually  against  the  funda- 
mental prmciples  of  all  government  and  all  social  order. 


THE  NATUEAX  RELIGION   OF   THE   STATE.  221 

To  recapitulate  what  has  been  said,  government  and 
social  order  are  a  necessity  of  communities  and  nations. 
God  has  provided  for  the  existence  of  government  and 
order  in  the  essential  and  natural  duties,  in  the  primal 
and  natural  law,  of  the  filial  relation,  under  which  every 
cliild  that  obeys  the  veiy  instinct  of  a  child's  nature 
becomes  of  necessity  a  loyal  and  orderly  subject.  Far- 
back  in  the  very  rudest  antiquity,  —  long  before  men 
could  have  begun  to  philosophize  on  then-  relations  or  on 
the  analogy  between  the  family  and  the  state,  —  we  find 
tliis  fundamental,  vital  law  of  the  state  promulgated  in  a 
conunandment  that  purports  to  have  come  directly  from 
God.  Can  we  resist  the  belief,  that  the  announcement  of 
a  truth  so  manifestly  beyond  the  age  and  people  m  which 
we  find  it  was  actually  made  by  Him  ? 

But  while  fihal  obedience  alone  can  train  worthy  sub- 
jects for  the  state,  there  are  yet  other  aspects  in  which 
government  depends  on  the  home-life,  and  is  sustained  by 
the  family  relation,  so  that,  for  a  homeless  community, 
anarchy  or  despotism  would  be  the  alternative.  To  an 
mcalculable  degree  the  home-instinct  supplies  the  place 
of  law,  supersedes  the  harsher  ministries  of  government, 
prevents  crime,  anticipates  want,  divides  and  lightens 
burdens  which  else  no  public  organization  could  bear. 
The  gravitation  toward  home  is  in  every  nation  a  stronger 
force  than  its  police  and  armies  are  or  can  be,  and  accom- 
pUshes  many  purposes  of  prime  importance  which  they 
could  in  no  way  fulfil.  The  few  homeless  members  of  a 
community  are  of  immeasurably  more  charge,  bui'den, 
and  peril  to  its  constituted  authorities,  than  the  over- 
whelmmg  majority  that  have  homes. 

I  called  the  tendency  to  domestic  life  the  home-instinct; 


222  CHRISTIANITY   THE   RELIGION   OF   NATURE. 

for  it  is  not  the  result  of  reason,  or  a  choice  jfrom  inter- 
ested motives,  and  it  has  the  same  kind  of  power  over  the 
hmnan  will  that  the  migratory  instmct  exerts  upon  the 
wings  of  a  bird.  When  we  look  at  the  matter  abstractly, 
homes  are  not  necessary.  We  can  conceive  of  life  as 
existing  independently  of  them.  The  conjugal  and  pa- 
rental relations  might  be  owned  and  kept  sacred  in  the 
gregarious  hfe  which  the  sociahsts  would  have  us  lead. 
It  has  been,  also,  plausibly  —  though,  I  think,  not  without 
a  latent  sophistry  —  maintained,  and  is  pretty  generally 
behoved,  that,  under  a  sociahstic  regime^  there  would  be 
not  only  a  more  equable  distribution,  but  a  more  profuse 
creation,  of  the  elements  of  material  comfort  and  enjoy- 
ment than  under  the  institution  of  separate  famihes.  Yet 
under  all  forms  and  degrees  of  culture  there  is  this  irre- 
sistible tendency  to  a  separate  abode  for  each  several 
family,  —  a  latent  consciousness,  almost  miiversal,  that 
home  can  be  surrendered  only  at  an  inconceivable  sacri- 
fice of  all  that  is  most  loved  and  enjoyed. 

By  tliis  instinct  man  is  brought  into  analogy  with  the 
entu-e  system  of  the  universe.  In  the  outward  creation 
every  object  is  at  once  a  centre  and  a  satelHte.  The  sun, 
with  circling  worlds  revolving  around  it,  itself  revolves 
around  a  centre  of  unnumbered  systems.  The  planets, 
secondaries  to  the  sun,  are  primaries  to  their  moons. 
Every  existence,  every  particle  of  matter,  itself  drawn  by 
mighty  attractions,  is  equally  a  centre  of  attractive  force 
to  surrounding  objects.  In  human  society  almost  all  are 
moving  in  circumferences  around  distant  centres,  —  all 
are  so  when  compared  in  importance  and  dignity  with 
the  Supreme  Being.  But  in  liis  home  every  human  be- 
ing is  hunself  a  centre,  —  the  parent,  of  reverence ;  the 
child,  of  love ;  the  dependent,  o^  tender  care.     Here  the 


THE  NATURAL  RELIGION   OF   THE  STATE.  223 

little  become  great,  the  obsciu-e  are  clothed  with  honor. 
Those  made  to  feel  theii*  msigiiificance  everywhere  else 
are  important  here.  Those  whose  out-of-door  life  seems 
a  blank  have  here  a  hfe  on  which  others  hang  with 
interest.  Each  is  here  looked  npon,  in  some  measure, 
with  a  distmgnishing  regard,  and  all  that  there  is  in  him 
OT  of  him  is  held  at  its  ftJl  value. 

Cast  yom-  eye  over  a  miscellaneous  street  group  in 
some  portion  of  your  city  not  considered  as  peculiarly 
genteel.  You  see  there  many  of  no  note  in  the  Avorld's 
esteem,  cumberers  of  the  gromid,  burdens  on  reluctant 
charity,  drones  in  the  great  hive,  pestilential  elements  in 
the  lower  strata  of  society.  Yet  there  is  one  spot  — 
mean  and  rude  it  may  be  —  where  the  most  squalid  of 
that  group  is  held  in  regard,  perhaps  in  the  same  devoted 
affection  that  renders  om'  homes  happy.  There  is  a  wife, 
who  has  made  her  slender  preparations  for  his  evening 
comfort.  There  are  children,  who  greet  him  by  the  most 
endearins:  of  names,  and  who  would  not  forsake  his  guar- 
dianship  for  the  most  affluent  abode.  He  is  a  prince  m 
his  little  empire,  and  its  security  and  love  make  large 
amends  to  him  for  the  toil  and  buffeting  of  his  despised 
walk  among  men.  Is  he  vicious,  nay,  a  very  Ishmael  in 
his  vices,  his  hand  against  every  man  and  every  man's 
hand  against  him  ?  Still  there  are  those  here  who  will 
cover  his  failings,  temporize  with  his  infirmities,  remember 
fondly  his  better  days,  and  never  yield  up  the  long- 
deferred  hope  of  better  days  to  come.  Is  the  dwelling 
the  abode  of  common  vices  and  of  mutual  strife  ?  Still 
it  is  not  always  so.  There  are  seasons  of  reconciliation, 
confidence,  enjoyment,  hope.  Their  journey  through  the 
desert  brings  them  now  and  then  to  an  oasis,  though  it  ba 
of  scanty  green  and  brief  blossoming. 


224  CHRISTIANITY   THE  EELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

Look,  again,  at  a  cluster  of  children  in  some  poor 
neigliborhood.  You  will  see  those  in  whom,  with  the 
kindest  heart,  you  cannot  feel  an  mdividual  interest,  — 
the  stupid,  the  ill-mannered,  the  squahdly  apparelled,  the 
misshapen.  Yet  among  them  all  you  may  not  mark  a 
single  unhappy  face,  and  the  most  ragged  and  micouth 
may  have  no  more  m  look  or  manner  to  excite  yom-  pity 
than  the  best-conditioned.  And  why?  Each  of  them 
has  a  home,  and  to  liim  it  has  all  the  elements  of  a  home. 
Each  of  them  has  a  close  and  dear  place  in  the  hearts 
of  one  Kttle  cii-cle.  On  that  coarse  and  patched  garment 
the  mother  has  toiled  lovingly,  and  has  appended  to  it 
some  hoarded  remnant  of  obsolete  finery,  and  to  her  eye 
it  is  not  uncomely.  The  stupidity  of  this  child  is  regarded 
at  home  as  a  prematurely  meek  and  quiet  spirit ;  the  bois- 
terous rudeness  of  that  cliild  as  the  exuberance  of  innocent 
mirthfiilness.  The  deformed  boy  has  a  httle  sister  who 
thinks  him  beautiful,  and  m  all  domestic  arrangements  and 
festivities  his  is  the  sunny  side,  the  Benjamin's  portion. 

I  have  said  enough  for  my  purpose,  which  is  to  illus- 
trate, not  the  blessedness  of  home,  but  its  connection  with 
the  security  and  permanence  of  pohtical  institutions,  —  its 
agency  in  extending  protection,  care,  and  comfort  to  whole 
classes  of  persons,  who  else  would  be  an  unmanageable 
burden  on  the  institutions  of  society,  an  intolerable,  tur- 
bulent, and  pestilential  mass  of  pauperism  and  crime. 

The  malign  action  of  whatever  impairs  the  sacredness 
of  home  may  be  seen  in  the  history  of  the  decline  and 
fall  of  the  Roman  empire.  In  the  best  days  of  tlie  Re- 
pubhc  the  standard  of  domestic  vii'tue  was  singulai'ly  pure 
and  high  for  a  heathen  nation,^  and  the  state  di'ew  health, 

1  "  Repudium  inter  uxorera  et  virum,  a  condita  urbe  usque  ad  vicesimum 
et  quingentesimura  annum  nullum  intercessit."  —  Valerius  Maximus,  II.  1,  ^  4 


THE  NATURAL  RELIGION   OF   THE   STATE.  2i!5 

v^gor,  and  culminating  power  from  fr-ugal  and  well- 
ordered  homes.  In  the  time  of  the  earlier  Emperors  the 
home-hfe  of  Rome  in  its  profligacy  distances  description, 
and  but  for  accumulated  evidence  would  transcend  belief. 
The  facility  of  divorce  left  the  wife  not  a  day's  security 
in  her  own  dwelling,^  and  abandoned  her  children  to  a 
succession  of  step-mothers,  whose  very  name  became  hate- 
ful from  its  identification  with  all  fiendish  forms  of  malice 
and  cruelty.  The  father  oftener  bequeathed  his  estate  to 
the  last  intriguing  woman  who  had  gained  ascendency 
over  his  dotage,  or  to  some  sycophantic  legacy-hunter, 

1  It  will  not  be  forgotten  here  that  Cicero,  whose  standard  of  morality  was 
by  no  means  low  for  his  time,  repudiated  his  wife  Terentia  to  marry  a  rich 
heiress,  his  own  ward,  and  this,  as  his  confidential  and  devotedly  attached 
freedman  Tiro  asserted,  in  order  to  obtain  means  to  pay  his  debts;  and  that 
he  shortly  afterward  repudiated  this  new  wife  because  she  did  not  sympa- 
thize with  him  in  grief  for  the  death  of  his  daughter.  In  like  manner,  Paulus 
^milius  —  certainly  a  man  of  rare  merit  —  repudiated  his  young  and  virtu- 
ous wife  for  no  assigned  or  known  cause,  simply  saying,  "  My  shoes  are  new, 
and  well  made,  yet  I  must  change  them ;  but  none  of  you  can  tell  where  they 
pinch  me."  Divorces  bona  gratia^  sine  ulla  querela^  and  sine  causa  are  referred 
to  familiarly,  as  of  every-day  occurrence;  and  the  divortium  bona  gratia  is  rec- 
ognized as  legal  in  the  Pandect.  Wives  in  process  of  time  assumed,  by  gen- 
eral consent,  and  without  legal  hinderance,  the  same  freedom  from  permanent 
matrimonial  bonds  which  had  been  conceded  to  husbands.  In  attestation  of 
this,  it  may  be  sufficient  to  cite  the  following  well-known  passage  from  Sen- 
eca: "  Numquid  jam  ulla  repudio  erubescit,  postquam  illustres  qusedara  ac 
nobiles  feminse,  non  consulum  numero,  sed  maritorum,  annos  suos  computantf 
et  exeunt  matrimonii  causa,  nubunt  repudii?  Tarn  diu  illud  timebatur,  quam 
diu  rarum  erat;  quia  vero  nulla  sine  divortio  acta  sunt,  quod  saspe  audiebant, 
facere  didicerunt."  —  De  Beneficiis,  III.  16. 

This  subject  is  ably  treated  by  Troplong,  De  V Injluence  du  Chrisdanisme 
sur  le  Droit  Civil  des  Romains.  Troplong's  treatise,  otherwise  admirable, 
evinces  an  occasional  carelessness  in  the  use  of  citations  from  classical  au- 
thorities. Thus  he  writes  (p.  206),  "Mec6ne  ^tait  cdlebre  par  ses  mille 
mariages  et  ses  divorces  quotidiens,"  and  quotes,  concerning  Maecenas,  two 
passages  from  Seneca,  "  Qui  uxorem  millies  duxit,"  and  "  Quotidiana  re- 
pudia,"  but  neglects  to  add  to  the  first  of  these  citations,  "  quum  unanj 
habuerit."  Majcenas,  though  a  gross  sensualist,  had  but  one  wife,  and  Sen- 
eca refers  to  the  daily  quarrels  and  reconciliations  between  him  and  his  wife. 
10*  O 


226  CHKISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

than  to  liis  rightful  heirs,  who  inherited  nothing  but  his 
depravity.  The  foulest  of  now  nameless  vices  ran  riot  in 
the  dwelhngs  of  the  rich,  while  the  poor  were  fed  mainly 
by  largesses  bestowed  for  then-  complicity  in  pubhc  crime, 
and  were  trained  to  ferocity  by  gladiatorial  shows  and  by 
the  conflicts  of  men  with  savage  beasts.  All  manly  attri- 
butes died  out  of  the  heart  of  the  nation,  which  had  as 
little  capacity  of  being  fitly  governed  as  its  worst  tyrants 
had  of  discreet  and  virtuous  rule.  The  bonds  of  society 
became,  hke  those  of  the  family,  a  rope  of  sand.  The 
hordes  of  Northern  barbarians,  whose  strength  had  been 
compacted  by  those  very  domestic  vu^tues  —  rude,  yet 
genuine  —  which  tlie  corrupt  civilization  of  the  Empire 
had  destroyed,  found  a  people  already  hopelessly  disinte- 
grated, and  thus  theh  easy  prey. 

Similar  lessons  come  to  us  from  the  modern  history  of 
France.  From  the  age  of  Louis  XIV.  to  the  fall  of  the 
monarchy,  gross  licentiousness,  brutahzuig  the  court  of 
every  sovereign  but  the  last,  had  descended  through  all 
grades  of  society,  had  obliterated  the  sanctity  and  dissolved 
the  bonds  of  domestic  life,  and  produced  a  condition  which 
micrht  remind  us  of  St.  Paul's  words  m  describino-  the 
Gentiles  of  his  day,  —  "  mthout  natm^al  affection."  The 
atheistical  philosophy  of  the  eighteenth  centuiy  struck  the 
axe  at  the  root  of  whatever  hngering  belief  or  principle 
remonstrated  against  abounduig  corruption.  Thus  were 
trained,  energized,  maddened,  the  high-priests  of  the  guil- 
lotine, —  the  men  at  whose  bidcUng  murder  became  law, 
innocence  crime,  religion  felony,  the  rivers  torrents  of 
blood. 

In  more  recent  times  the  atheistical  element,  still  intol- 
erant of  the  divine  order  of  the  household,  has  largely 
crystallized  into  socialism,  has  had  the  phalanstery  for  its 


THE   NATURAL   RELIGION    OF    THE   STATE.  227 

seminary,  and  the  plialanx  for  its  army  of  propagandism  ; 
and  in  the  later  French  revokitions  every  one  knows  how 
prominent  and  decisive  a  part  has  been  borne  by  sociahsm, 
which  has  repeatedly  heaved  society  from  its  base,  and 
threatened  to  whelm  the  nation  in  formless  anarchy.  In 
England  and  in  our  own  country,  —  thanks  to  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  element  of  common  sense,  and,  still  more,  thanks 
to  the  large  inftision  of  Christian  faith  and  principle,  — 
the  great  experiments  of  socialism  have  been  made  chiefly 
on  paper,  and  have  cost  only  the  printing ;  while  the 
overt  attempts  to  reahze  them  have  been  too  brief  and 
of  too  limited  extent  to  make  their  failure,  or  even  their 
ephemeral  existence,  a  matter  of  general  notoriety. 

Christianity  attests  its  claim  to  be  regarded  as  the  re- 
ligion of  natui'e  by  cherishing,  educating,  and  elevating 
the  home-instinct.  Alone  of  all  religious  systems,  it 
fences  the  conjugal  relation  with  inviolable  sanctity.  Its 
Fomider  recognized  and  honored  the  ties  of  kindred  and 
of  a  common  home.  His  presence  blessed  the  marriage 
festival ;  his  tears  fell  in  sympathy  with  the  bereaved 
household ;  and  in  his  miracles  he  reunited  broken  fam- 
ilies, and  gave  back  the  dead  to  the  embrace  of  parents 
and  of  sisters.  Wherever  his  religion  is  in  the  ascendant, 
in  each  little  republic  dwelling  under  the  same  roof  are 
shaped  in  strength  and  beauty  pillars  of  the  state,  on 
which  the  fabric  of  the  public  weal  may  rest  secm^ely,  and 
may  be  built  up  into  an  ever  closer  conformity  to  the 
divine  order  of  the  heavenly  commonwealth. 

But  the  state  needs  more  than  stability.  Stable  as 
against  misrule  and  anarchy,  it  should  be  so  organized, 
governed,  and  energized,  as  to  promote  the  progressive 
civihzation  of  its  members.     To  this  progressive  civiliza- 


228  CHRISTIANITY   THE   RELIGION   OF   NATURE. 

tion,  its  hlnderances  from  the  sources  usually  regarded 
as  its  fotintains,  and  its  dependence  for  ultimate  reali- 
zation on  certain  principles  of  natural  religion  revealed 
and  embodied  in  Christianity,  I  ask  your  attention  in  the 
remainder  of  this  Lecture. 

To  civilize  a  man  Hterally  denotes  to  make  him  a  cit- 
izen ;  that  is,  not  merely  to  make  hmi  a  voter  who  can  be 
bribed,  cajoled,  or  threatened  to  give  a  suffrage  which  has 
fi'om  his  hand  no  more  significance  than  it  would  have 
from  the'  mouth  of  a  dog,  but  to  endow  him  with  such 
traits  of  character  and  to  environ  him  with  such  suiTomid- 
ings  as  shall  enable  him  to  enjoy  all  the  privileges  and  to 
discharge  all  the  duties  of  a  citizen.  The  civilization  of  a 
people  implies  the  multiplication  of  such  citizens,  —  the 
extension  of  such  traits  of  character  and  such  privileges 
to  the  greatest  possible  number.  Now  in  this  sense  there 
is  no  ci^dlized  nation  upon  the  earth.  In  our  own  State, 
which  approaches  as  nearly  to  that  standard  as  any  por- 
tion of  the  world,  there  is  probably  cast  every  year  as 
large  a  number  of  unintelligent  and  irresponsible  votes, 
as  of  votes  proceeding  fi'om  men  who  know  the  impor- 
tance and  feel  the  solemnity  of  the  act ;  and  what  multi- 
tudes have  we,  who  stand  in  no  relation  of  mutual  benefit 
to  surrounding  society,  who  neither  receive  nor  impart 
other  than  harmful  influences,  and  who,  though  not  ostra- 
cized by  the  law,  are  as  veritable  pariahs  as  if  they  were 
recognized  as  an  inferior  and  unpri^dleged  caste  ! 

Among  the  reputed  criteria  and  means  of  civilization 
I  would  first  name  the  increase  of  national  wealth.  This, 
if  not  connected  with  a  diffusion  equally  rapid,  is  detri- 
mental to  the  progress  of  civilization.  It  is,  however,  the 
natural  tendency  of  wealth  to  mcrease  without  diffusion. 
Accessions  of  wealth  necessarily  come  first  into  the  handii 


THE  NATURAL   RELIGION   OF   THE   STATE.  229 

of  capitalists,  and  cliieily  into  those  of  large  capitalists  ; 
and  if  there  be  no  active  moral  principle  to  produce  a  dif- 
ferent result,  capital  by  its  increase  and  concentration  gets 
a  more  absolute  control  over  the  labor-market,  and  can 
dictate  its  own  terms  to  the  laborer.  Moreover,  experi- 
ence has  shown  (and  there  are  intrinsic  reasons  for  it 
which  it  would  requhe  more  time  than  I  have  now  at  my 
command  to  state  in  fall)  that  with  the  growth  of  na- 
tional wealth  the  rate  of  profits  declines  ;  and  this  dechne 
is  fatal  to  smaller  capitalists,  distances  them  in  the  compe- 
tition for  gam,  impoverishes  them,  and  throws  them  back 
into  the  ranks  of  labor.  Great  Britain  has  become  the 
richest  country  in  the  world,  but  has  declined  in  whatever 
the  general  diffusion  of  wealth  can  contribute  to  civiliza- 
tion, in  proportion  as  it  has  grown  rich.  The  landed  prop- 
erty of  England  and  Scotland  is  owned  by  hardly  more 
than  one  third  of  the  number  of  proprietors  that  possessed 
the  soil  at  the  beginning  of  the  present  century.  Small  es- 
tates are  fast  becoming  extinct,  and  tenancies  are  merged 
in  sheep-walks  that  sustain  and  employ  not  a  tithe  of  their 
former  inhabitants,  and  in  immense  farms,  on  which  the 
children  of  the  former  owners  or  occupants  have  sunk  in 
part  into  serfdom,  while  still  larger  numbers  of  them  have 
been  driven  to  the  manufacturmg  towns,  where  their  la- 
bor is  often  compensated  just  above  the  starvation-point. 
Cottage  fires  have  been  extinguished  by  thousands,  and 
the  ejected  peasantry  are  thrown  into  the  labor-market,  to 
reduce  still  lower,  if  possible,  the  pittance  of  the  toiling 
masses,  or  to  swell  the  constantly  growing  multitudes 
dependent  on  pubHc  alms,  who  have  constituted  in  some 
years  no  less  than  one  sixth  part  of  the  entire  population. 
Now  wealth  must  and  will  increase,  and  its  growth  is  in 
itself  an  object  of  desh'e  ;  for  it  is  the  potential  means  of 


230  CHRISTIANITY   THE   RELIGION   OF   NATURE. 

added  comfort  and  privilege  to  all  classes  and  every  mem- 
ber of  society.  Yet  in  order  to  make  it  the  actual  means 
of  the  general  good,  there  must  be  a  law  of  distribution, 
*—  a  law  which  can  never  be  arbitrarily  enacted,  but 
must  be  imposed,  if  imposed  at  all,  by  moral,  spiritual 
forces. 

Another  alleged  criterion  and  ao;ent  of  ci\'ilization  is 
industrial  development  by  means  of  macliineiy  and  the 
division  of  labor.  As  I  showed  you  in  a  former  Lecture, 
this  must  ultimately  redound  to  the  benefit  —  to  the 
improvement  and  elevation  —  of  the  laborer;  but  not 
in  and  of  itself.  Its  immediate  tendency  is  in  the  op- 
posite du-ection.  With  the  same  amomit  of  early  culture 
and  the  same  hours  of  labor,  a  man  is  less  of  a  man  in 
intelligence,  range  of  ideas,  and  scope  of  activity,  when 
he  makes  a  twentieth  part  of  a  pin,  than  if  he  made  the 
whole  pm,  —  when  he  merely  watches  a  set  of  spindles  or 
mends  a  web,  than  if  he  took  the  wool  or  cotton  home 
and  brought  the  finished  cloth  to  market.  Improvements 
in  maclunery  tend  of  themselves  to  make  the  operative 
less  and  less  a  discretionary  agent,  more  and  more  a  mere 
mechanical  force  ;  and  fi'om  authentic  testimony  before 
the  Enghsh  Parliament  we  might  hesitate  whether  to 
prefer  the  civilization  of  the  Malays  and  Hottentots,  or 
that  of  which  some  dark  vestiges  yet  remam  in  the  fac- 
tories and  collieries  of  Great  Britain.  Now  these  improve- 
ments are  inevitable,  and  are  destined  to  be  of  immeas- 
urable value  to  all  classes  and  conditions  of  people  ;  yet 
not  ^^athout  a  moral,  spiiitual  duection,  which  shall  secm'e 
the  universal  difiusion,  not  only  of  the  comforts .  of  life 
which  thev  multiply  and  cheapen,  but  equally  of  the  time 
which  they  save,  of  the  leism^e  for  nobler  purposes  than 
handcraft  wliich  God  proffers  to  the  whole  race  through 


THE  I^ATURAL   RELIGION   OF   THE   STATE.  231 

tlie  meclianical  j^owers  and  scientific  resources  placed  by 
his  pro\ddence  at  their  command. 

National  strength,  in  the  common-  and  belligerent  accep- 
tation of  the  term,  is  also  a  false  criterion  of  civilization. 
Of  nations  considered  as  physical  forces,  that  is  the  strong- 
est in  which  the  individual  will  has  the  least  scope,  —  in 
which  authority  is  centralized,  and  the  people  can  be 
moved  in  masses.  Armies  represent  a  nation's  brute 
strength,  and,  except  in  a  cause  that  vitally  concerns  the 
whole  people,  armies  can  be  best  sustained  and  recniited 
where  the  people  have  the  least  self-respect,  the  scantiest 
means  of  livelihood,  and  the  lowest  standard  of  home-com- 
fort. In  our  present  rebellion,  even  with  the  strongest  ar- 
ray of  patriotic  feeling  on  the  side  of  the  Constitution  and 
the  Union,  the  South,  with  its  much  smaller  population, 
was  long  able  to  cope  with  the  Northern  States  on  nearly 
equal  terms,  and  has  yielded  to  our  superior  resources  with 
a  slowness  which  we  could  not  have  anticipated,  solely 
because  slavery,  by  impoverishing  and  degi'admg  the  im- 
mense majority  of  the  white  inhabitants,  has  furnished  a 
preponderantly  large  supply  of  the  materials  of  wliich 
armies  are  best  constituted,  —  men  whose  nature  it  is  to 
yield  to  strong  wills,  and  to  make  of  themselves  a  mere 
physical  force  in  the  hands  of  their  leaders.  The  diffusion 
of  political  power  undoubtedly  impairs  a  nation's  strength, 
whether  for  a2;pTession  or  for  defence  ;  but  it  tends  of  ne- 
cessity  to  raise  a  people  equally  above  the  pm-pose  of  ag- 
gression and  the  need  of  defence.  This  diffused  power, — 
the  power  of  general  intelligence,  civic  and  personal  \dr- 
tue,  and  enhghtened  public  opinion,  —  which  is  the  result 
of  moral  causes  alone,  is  at  once  the  effect,  the  cause,  and 
the  criterion  of  progressive  civilization. 

Knowledge  claims  to  be,  but  is  not  necessarily,  a  civiliz- 


232  CHRISTIANITY  THE  EELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

ing  agent.  When  increased  and  not  diffused,  it  only  ag- 
gravates social  inequality,  and  puts  into  the  hands  of  the 
few  advantages  which  they  can  employ  against  the  many. 
Thus  the  Egyptian  priests  at  a  very  early  epoch  had  the 
monopoly  of  nearly  all  the  science  and  knowledge  of 
the  world,  and  they  were  thereby  enabled  to  play  at  will 
on  the  creduhty  of  the  people,  and  to  extort  wealth, 
power,  and  mfluence  from  their  superstitious  fears.  In 
all  modern  history,  there  have  been  no  institutions  of 
learning  so  exclusive  as  the  two  great  Enghsh  Univer- 
sities. Sustained  by  the  accumulated  gifts  of  many  gen- 
erations, yet  till  within  the  last  six  or  eight  years  closed 
agamst  all  Dissenters,  —  virtually  closed,  too,  against  all 
except  the  sons  or  proteges  of  the  rich  and  the  noble  (for 
then'  eleemosynary  fomidations  receive  beneficiaries  chiefly 
through  aristocratic  nomination  or  influence),  —  they  have 
cast  a  shadow  broader  than  their  light,  have  thrust  back 
from  the  heights  of  knowledge  more  than  they  have 
helped  to  scale  them,  have  widened  the  distance  between 
those  of  patrician  and  those  of  plebeian  birth,  and  thus 
have  tended  to  perpetuate  those  glaring  contrasts  in 
society,  tlie  reduction  of  which  is  a  prime  aim  and  crite- 
rion of  civilization.  Knowledge  is  too  vast  a  power,  and 
too  prolific  a  source  of  power,  to  be  safely  centrahzed  or 
made  exclusive  property.  It  becomes  a  social  blessing 
only  when  its  avenues  are  freely  opened,  its  facilities  mul- 
tiplied, its  attainments  placed  within  the  reach  of  every 
determined,  vigorous  and  persevering  seeker. 

This  review  of  the  reputed  sources  and  means  of  civ- 
ilization authorizes  the  assertion,  that  the  process  of  civil- 
ization consists,  not  in  the  accumulation  of  any  good  or 
of  all  goods,  but  in  the  placing  of  all  or  of  any  within  the 
reach  of  the  great  body  of  citizens.     We  now  ask,  What 


THE  NATURAL   RELIGION    OF   THE   STATE.  233 

is  the  principle  of  diffusion  on  which  the  hope  of  the  race 
must  rely  ?  Whence  springs  the  desu'e  to  diffuse,  the 
forethought  of  members  of  the  body  politic  for  one  an- 
other, the  will  and  effort  to  throw  mto  a  common  stock 
any  and  every  class  of  advantages,  material,  intellectual, 
and  moral  ?  It  springs  from  the  sentiment  and  spirit  of 
universal  brotherhood,  —  from  the  philanthropy  which 
cannot  have  without  imparting,  which  deems  the  unshared 
gift  unblessed.  Still  more,  this  sentiment  and  spirit  must 
have  a  rehgious  basis  in  the  great  truths  of  the  fatherhood 
of  God  and  the  immortality  of  man.  These  alone  authen- 
ticate rights  on  the  one  hand,  and  establish  duties  on  the 
other.  There  is  no  earthly  claim  which  the  straitened  and 
depressed  can  proffer.  There  is  no  earthly  force  that  can 
rmclench  the  grasp  of  monopoly,  dissolve  the  close  cor- 
poration of  exclusive  privilege,  and  throw  wide  the  ave- 
nues of  competition  for  all  who  will  enter  the  lists. 

Equality  of  right  and  privilege  is  utterly  impossible  on 
anti-religious  or  non-religious  ground.  No  matter  how 
liberal  the  institutions  of  government  may  be  in  name, 
they  are  liberal  in  their  working,  and  in  the  mtent  of  their 
workers,  only  when  they  are  pervaded  and  energized  by 
a  religious  faith  in  God  and  heaven.  On  no  other  ground 
is  there  any  reason  why  they  should  be  liberal.  Take 
away  men's  common  parentage  and  common  destiny,  — 
lop  ofP  from  the  column  of  human  existence  its  base  and  its 
capital,  —  you  leave  men  with  nothing  in  common,  with 
no  points  of  union  or  of  sympathy.  They  diverge  widely 
from  very  birth  ;  they  differ  greatly  from  one  another  in 
the  outside  of  existence ;  they  come  together  only  beyond 
the  grave.  If  they  are  not  traced  from  a  common  Father 
and  to  a  common  destiny,  then  these  earthly  differences 
are  all  in  all,  and   they  lay  a  fair   and  just   fomidation 


234  CHRISTIANITY   THE   RELIGION   OF   NATURE. 

for  the  encroachments  and  extortions  of  the  richer  and 
stronger,  and  for  the  abject,  brute-Hke  submission  of  the 
poorer  and  weaker.  Unless  mankuid  be  one  family  in 
origin  and  destiny,  might  is  right,  selfishness  is  duty ; 
society  has  no  bond,  unposes  no  mutual  obligations  ;  and 
the  whole  commmiity  naturally  and  necessarily  di-vades 
itself  into  the  two  great  classes  of  the -preying  and  the 
preyed  upon. 

The  unbehever,  then,  though  he  style  himself  a  repub- 
hcan,  is  such  a  friend  to  republican  institutions  as  Sam- 
son was  to  the  cono;regated  nobles  of  Phihstia.  His  hands 
grasp  the  pillars  of  Freedom's  temple,  but  it  is  to  tear 
them  from  their  base,  and  to  bury  the  structure  and 
its  inmates  in  common  ruin.  France  tried  the  experi- 
ment ;  and  never  in  the  history  of  the  race  were  human 
rights  so  outrageously  violated,  freedom  so  utterly  sub- 
verted, man  so  trampled  upon  by  man,  as  in  the  name  of 
liberty  and  equahty  dui'ing  the  first  French  Revolution. 
Those  self-styled  champions  of  popular  rights,  Danton, 
Marat,  Robespierre,  and  their  colleagues,  so  fir  tran- 
scended the  tp-anny  and  cruelty  of  earlier  times,  that, 
placed  at  their  side,  the  most  relentless  tyrants  (except 
those  who  were  idiots  or  madmen,  as  some  of  the  Roman 
Emperors  seem  to  have  been)  might  appear  in  the  com- 
parison with  clean  hands  and  with  honest  and  generous 
hearts.  Thus  was  France  tossed  in  the  wliu'lpool  of 
democratic  tyi^anny,  till  she  deemed  herself  only  too 
happy  to  escape  fr'om  her  hydra-headed  despot  to  the 
unbounded  power  and  sole  mastery  of  a  smgle  absolute 
sovereign. 

It  was  this  same  absence  of  the  rehgious  element  that 
vitiated  the  ancient  republics,  commonly  so  called,  which 
were  in  fact,  and  without  exception,  oppressive  ohgarchies, 


THE  NATURAL  RELIGION   OF  THE  STATE.  235 

in  wMcli  the  caste-system  was  established  as  rigorously  as 
it  is  now  in  Hindostan,  with  the  exception  that  there  was 
no  mdelible  taint  of  blood  to  prevent  members  of  a  lower 
caste  from  rising  by  extraordinary  genius  or  some  rare 
conjuncture  of  favoi'ing  chxumstances. 

We  have  thus  seen  that  the  diffusive  principle  and  the 
entire  system  of  equal  nghts  and  mutual  obhgations  rest 
on  the  Divine  paternity  and  the  immortahty  of  man,  which 
appertain  most  emphatically  to  the  natural  rehgion  of  the 
state.  But  these  are  tiniths  of  natural  religion  wliich  are 
clearly  discerned  only  m  the  light  of  revelation,  or,  rather, 
only  in  the  person  of  Him  who  could  say,  "  He  that  hath 
seen  me,  hath  seen  the  Father,"  and  in  whose  resurrec- 
tion the  eternal  hfe  is  made  manifest.  In  the  precise 
proportion  in  which  his  words  are  not  only  repeated  in  the 
creeds,  but  incoi-porated  into  the  Hfe  of  nations,  must 
there  be  the  progressive  realization  of  those  truths  pro- 
nounced in  our  Declaration  of  Independence  to  be  self- 
evident,  yet  never  self-evident  except  at  a  high  stage  of 
Christian  cultm^e  ;  —  "  that  all  men  are  created  equal ; 
that  they  are  endowed  by  then-  Creator  with  certain  in- 
alienable rights  ;  that  among  these  are  hfe,  liberty,  and 
the  pursuit  of  happiness;  that  to  secure  these  rights 
governments  are  estabhshed,  deriving  their  just  powers 
from  the  consent  of  the  governed." 

If  Christianity  be  thus  identical  Avith  the  natural  re- 
ligion of  the  state,  and  if  its  advancement  must  inevitably 
result  in  the.  progressive  civilization  of  the  race,  we  have 
an  affirmative  answer  to  the  question  of  the  permanence 
of  modern  civilization.  Egypt,  Persia,  Greece,  and  Rome 
successively  attained  a  very  high  degTce  of  civilization 
and  refinement,  and  were  subsequently  overswept  by  bar- 
barism, leavmg  only  records  and  ruins  of  their  former 


236  CHRISTIANITY  THE  EELIGION  OF  NATURE. 

renown ;  and  the  story  of  their  decline  was  told  by  a 
crafty  old  Roman,  wlio,  walking  in  liis  garden  with  the 
treason-plotting  magistrate  of  a  rival  city,  struck  off  with 
his  staff  the  heads  of  the  tallest  flowers  in  a  bed  of  pop- 
pies, —  thus  hinting  that,  if  a  few  chief  heads  of  the  people 
could  be  laid  low,  the  state  would  topple  and  fall.  What 
is  miscalled  ancient  civilization  shone  only  on  the  tallest 
heads,  and  in  any  civil  commotion  or  barbarian  mroad 
they  fell  at  once;  and  the  mass  left  beliind,  not  having 
partaken  in  the  civilization,  could  not  perpetuate  it. 
Modem  civilization  must  escape  this  fate  by  its  universal 
diffusion,  —  by  its  ha\dng  its  shi'ine  in  the  workshop  no  less 
than  in  the  drawing-room,  in  the  hamlet  no  less  than  in 
the  metropolis.  It  must  have  for  its  defenders,  not  a  cho- 
sen host,  fit  champions  though  few,  but  a  national  guard, 
a  militia  in  which  there  are  no  exempts,  in  which  every 
name  is  enrolled,  and  every  laborer  does  battle  for  his 
soil.  Such  a  civilization  can  die  out  only  with  the  race. 
It  must  live,  because  Christianity,  its  mother,  will  ever 
live.  It  must  gTow,  because  her  star  will  cuhninate.  It 
must  become  universal ;  for  the  word  of  the  Eternal  has 
gone  forth  that  her  sceptre  shall  rule  over  aU. 


LECTURE    XII. 

THE  SABBATH  A  LAW  OF  NATURAL  RELIGION.  —  CONCLUSION. 

In  previous  Lectures  I  have  attempted  to  show  the 
identity  of  the  doctrines  and  ethics  of  Christianity  with 
the  religion  of  nature.  Cluistianity  has,  also,  its  institu- 
tions, — positive  institutions,  as  they  are  sometimes  called, 
and  so  called  from  the  general  belief  that  there  is  no  in- 
trinsic reason  for  them,  that  they  ai'e  whoUy  of  arbitrary 
appointment,  and  that  they  might  have  had  a  different 
form  and  yet  have  equally  answered  their  pm'pose.  There 
is  so  little  of  formal  institution  or  ritual  belonging  ex- 
clusively to  Christianity,  and  what  there  is,  though  sacred 
and  mipoii:ant,  holds  so  secondaiy  a  place,  that  we  might 
admit  it  to  be  arbitraiy,  and  yet  the  admission  would 
hardly  modify  om'  general  view  of  the  religion.  But 
its  few  forms  are  not  rigid  and  arbitraiy.  Its  ceremonial 
hardly  merits  the  name,  so  simple  is  it,  so  flexible,  and 
so  capable  of  variation  in  its  details ;  while  it  is  so  sig- 
nificant, and  so  natm'al  in  its  significance,  that  it  easily 
ranges  itself  with  doctrine  and  duty  under  the  rehgion  of 
nature,  —  and  the  more  so,  as  it  does  not  even  ch'aw  its 
meaning  fi'om  the  historical  facts  of  the  Gospel,  but  rather 
from  the  fimdamental  and  eternal  laws  which  the  Gospel 
reveals.  Baptism,  the  initiatory  rite,  avails  itself  of  the 
universally  accepted  symbol  of  pimty ;  and  even  had  it 
not  been  appointed  by  the  authority  of  Christ,  it  might 
easily  have  come  into  use  for  the  infant,  whose  native 


238  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

purity  it  typifies,  while  it  prefigures  tlie  cleanness  of  heart 
and  life  wliich  is  oui'  first  hope  and  prayer  for  Mm  in  a 
world  of  temptation,  and  equally  for  the  penitent,  whose 
wasliing  from  sin  is  the  one  patent  fact  of  his  present 
state,  and  whose  continued  purity  is  at  once  his  own  fer- 
vent desire  and  the  foremost  wish  of  all  who  seek  his  true 
good.  And  were  we  left,  without  the  request  of  Him 
whose  redemption  sacrifice  this  day^  commemorates,  to 
choose  a  rite  which  should  express  at  once  om-  thankfril- 
ness  for  the  Divine  benignity  and  our  fellowship  with  our 
brethren  still  on^the  earth,  with  those  who  have  passed  on 
before  us,  and  with  the  Lord  of  the  hving  and  the  dead 
in  whom  the  whole  family  in  heaven  and  on  earth  is  made 
one,  what  could  we  elect  so  natm^al,  so  appropriate,  so 
fraught  with  associations  at  once  of  gratitude  and  com- 
munion, as  the  lilveness  of  the  social  meal,  crowned  with 
the  bomities  of  Providence,  and  in  all  tunes  and  lands 
refined  and  spiritualized  by  domestic  love,  friendly  con- 
verse, and  hospitable  kindness?  It  was  in  the  very 
simplicity  of  natm'e  that  He  whose  loving  regards  on  the 
eve  of  his  crucifixion  passed  down  the  vista  of  ages  and 
comprehended  unborn  generations,  sought  for  his  com- 
memorative rite  no  elaborate  ceremony,  but  took  bread 
and  wine,  the  staff  and  the  refreshment  of  daily  life,  and 
converted  them  into  symbols  of  the  deathless  union  of 
his  spiritual  family,  ^  typifying  still  further  the  common 
duties,  miostentatious  sacrifices,  daily  wayside  charities, 
which  are  the  perpetual  token,  seal,  and  pledge  of  the 
communion  of  his  disciples  with  one  another  and  with 
then-  Lord  and  Master. 

As  regards  the  organization  of  the  Chm'ch,  it  would  ill 
become  me  to  enter  here   on  disputed   ground  ;  yet  I 

1  This  Lectm*e  was  delivered  on  the  evening  of  Good  Friday. 


THE   SABBATH  A  LAW   OF  NATUKAL  RELIGION.        239 

would  beg  leave  to  exj)ress  my  entire  accordance  with 
Archbishop  Whately  in  the  behef  tliat  no  unvarying  type 
of  church-organization  is  expressly  enjoined  in  the  New 
Testament,  or  virtually  prescribed  by  Christ  or  liis  Apos- 
tles, and  that  the  absence  of  such  a  type  sliows  it  to  have 
been  the  design  of  the  Founder  of  our  relioion  that  each 
portion  of  the  Chui'ch  should  adopt  such  interior  arrange- 
ments as  may  best  suit  its  needs,  insure  its  stabihty,  pro- 
mote its  edification,  and  extend  its  usefulness. 

Omitting,  for  lack  of  time,  the  fui'ther  treatment  of  the 
specifically  Christian  ritual,  I  pass  to  the  consideration  of 
the  Sabbath,  —  an  institution  older  than  Christianity,  yet 
so  emphatically  sanctioned  by  Jesus  Christ,  and  so  gener- 
ally observed  m  liis  Church,  as  to  be  closely  identified 
with  his  religion.  The  position  which  the  Sabbath  holds 
in  the  Decalogue  claims  our  special  attention.  Of  the 
ten  commandments  said  to  have  been  given  on  Mount 
Sinai,  nme  are  confessedly  not  Hebrew,  nor  temporaiy, 
nor  ritual,  but  of  essential  duty  and  miiversal  obhgation ; 
presenting,  in  fine,  an  epitome  of  practical  rehgion  and 
ethics,  fi'om  which  you  can  take  nothing  without  leaving 
a  lacuna  to  be  deprecated,  to  which  you  can  add  notliing 
that  would  not  hold  a  secondary  place  as  compared  with 
either  of  the  nme.  With  these,  fom-th  in  the  series,  pre- 
ceded by  the  law  which  interdicts  blasphemy,  the  most 
audacious  of  sins  against  the  Majesty  of  heaven,  and  fol- 
lowed by  the  law  which  enjoms  filial  piety,  the  first  and 
most  sacred  in  the  cataloo;ue  of  relative  duties  and  the 
fountain-head  of  all  social  vu'tues,  stands  the  precept, 
"  Remember  the  Sabbath  day  to  keep  it  holy."  If  tins  be 
a  mere  provision  of  the  Jewish  ritual,  why  is  it  here,  and 
not  rather  in  Leviticus,  along  with  the  feast-days?     Its 


240  CHRISTIANITY  THE   RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

place  seems  to  indicate  that  it  was  regarded,  at  least  by 
the  author  of  the  Pentateuch,  as,  like  the  rest,  a  law  of 
natural  right,  intrinsic  fitness,  and  universal  obhgation. 
Our  Saviour  and  his  Apostles  evidently  take  this  ground. 
They  never  represent  the  Hebrew  ritual  as  bindmg  on 
any  but  the  posterity  of  Jacob,  or  as  permanently  binchng 
on  them ;  but  they  repeatedly  cite  the  Decalogue  as  of 
universal  and  perpetual  obligation,  and  Jesus  quotes  it  in 
answer  to  the  question,  "  What  shall  I  do  that  I  may 
inherit  eternal  life  "  ?  He  also  says,  without  hmitation  or 
quahfication,  "The  Sabbath  was  made  for  man,"  —  not 
for  the  Hebrews,  but  for  all  men ;  and  in  claiming  as  ap- 
propriate for  its  observance  works  of  love  and  chaiity,  he 
imphes  that  there  are  other  works,  m  themselves  innocent 
and  right,  from  which  it  is  a  duty  to  abstam  on  the  Sab- 
bath. Yet  more,  he  cites  God's  beneficent  activity  dmiag 
the  age-long  Sabbath  of  creation,  whose  seconds  are  centu- 
ries, as  the  precedent  for  his  own  beneficent  activity  on 
the  weekly  Sabbath,  —  "My  Father  worketh  hitherto," 
that  is,  dm^mg  the  Sabbath  that  has  supervened  upon  the 
successive  epochs  of  creative  energy,  "and  I  work,"  that 
is,  I  in  like  manner  do  liis  work  on  the  Sabbath  that  suc- 
ceeds every  six  days  of  secular  toil. 

I  cannot  but  rep-ard  the  law  of  the  Sabbath  as  a  law  of 
natm^al  rehgion,  revealed  because  it  is  natui'al,  written  on 
the  tablet  of  stone  because  it  had  been  first  written  on 
hmnan,  animal,  and  inanimate  natm-e.  It  is  as  old  as  the 
creation,  and  the  author  of  the  Pentateuch  did  not  ante- 
date it  when  he  made  it  coeval  with  the  bh'th  of  man. 
We  find  repeated  traces  of  it  in  Genesis,  —  m  the  division 
of  time  into  weeks,  and  in  the  sacredness  attached  to  the 
number  seven  in  the  lives  of  the  ancient  patriarchs. 
When  mention  is  first  made  of  the  Sabbath  in  the  history 


THE   SABBATH  A   LAW   OF  NATURAL   RELIGION.        241 

of  tlie  Israelites,  prior  to  tlie  giving  of  the  law  ifrom 
Mount  Sinai,  it  is  named,  not  as  a  new  institution,  with 
the  detailed  exposition  of  reasons  and  motives  which  in 
the  sacred  books  always  accompanies  important  enact- 
ments made  for  the  first  tune,  but  in  precisely  the  way 
in  which  we  should  expect  to  read  the  re-enactment  of  an 
observance  old,  traditional,  well  known,  yet  partially  dis- 
used dming  the  season  of  Egyptian  bondage  ;  —  "  To- 
morrow is  the^  [a]  rest  of  tlie^  [a]  holy  Sabbath  unto 
the  Lord.  Bake  that  which  ve  will  bake,  and  seethe  that 
which  ye  will  seethe  ;  and  that  which  remaineth  over,  lay 
ap  for  you  to  be  kept  until  the  morning."  The  septenary 
di^dsion  of  time  from  the  earliest  ages  was  miiformly  ob- 
served all  over  the  Eastern  world.  We  find  vestiges  of 
it  among  the  Egyptians,  Assyrians,  Persians,  and  Arabs, 
nations  severed  from  the  common  ancestral  tree  long 
before  the  birth  of  the  Hebrew  commonwealth.  The 
Greeks  e^adently  brought  with  them  from  the  East  the 
septenary  institutions,  associations,  and  habits  common  to 
the  Oriental  nations ;  for  both  Hesiod  and  Homer  speak 
of  "the  seventh,  the  sacred  day." 

The  primeval  origin  of  the  Sabbath  becomes  the  more 
probable  when  we  consider  that  the  week  is  not  an  astro- 
nomical division,  but  that  it  is  precisely  adapted  to  confuse 
and  derange  the  month,  —  the  most  obvious  astronomical 
period  longer  than  the  day.  The  epochs  of  the  new  and 
the  full  moon  were  prommently  marked  by  all  ancient  na- 
tions. The  average  length  of  the  month  is  twenty-nine 
and  a  half  days,  so  that  each  successive  festival  of  the  new 
or  the  ftdl  moon  must  have  recuiTcd  later  in  the  week 

1  The  article  [the]  is  wanting  in  the  Hebrew.  Its  presence  would  strengthen 
our  argument;  yet  it  is  so  often  omitted  by  the  Hebrew  wi-iters  in  positions  in 
which  modem  usage  would  require  the  definite  article,  that  no  adverse  infer- 
ence can  be  founded  on  its  absence. 

11  ' 


242  CHRISTIANITY   THE   RELIGION   OF   NATURE. 

than  the  preceding,  —  a  fact  which  shows  that  the  week  is 
more  Klvely  to  have  been  a  primeval  mstitution,  than  to 
have  resulted  from  an  awkward  attempt  to  divide  the 
month  by  a  divisor  which  leaves  with  regard  to  the  month 
an  annoying  and  embarrassing  remainder. 

The  law  of  the  Sabbath  is  a  law  of  the  human  body. 
Man's  physical  strength  will  not  bear  a  perpetual  strain. 
It  has  always  been  found  necessary  to  give  periods  of  re- 
laxation to  the  toil-di'iven.  Where  the  weekly  Sabbath 
has  not  been  so  appropriated,  its  place  has  been  supphed, 
though  imperfectly,  by  festivals,  pubhc  games,  satumaha, 
when  the  axe,  the  hammer,  and  the  distaff  have  been  laid 
aside,  and  the  slave  has  been  as  free  as  his  master.  Re- 
garding man  simply  as  a  mechanical  agent,  and  consid- 
ering the  question  how  in  a  series  of  years  he  may  be 
enabled  to  accomphsh  the  most  labor,  ample  experience 
has  shown  that  six  working-days  in  the  week  are  worth 
more  than  seven.  Where  there  are  no  regular  mtervals 
of  repose,  the  laborer  is  soon  broken  do^vn,  and  becomes 
a  spiritless  slave,  incapable  of  half  the  effort  and  endur- 
ance which  sit  hghtly  on  hhn  who  has  one  day  of  rest  in 
seven.  The  fanner  in  hay-time  and  harvest-time,  the 
merchant  in  a  busy  season,  the  hard-working  mechajiic, 
feels  on  Satui'day  night  that  he  has  used  all  his  strength 
and  energy,  and  can  toil  no  longer.  Did  he  rise  the  next 
morning  to  pursue  his  task,  it  would  be  with  a  heavy 
heart  and  a  Hstless  hand.  But  the  day  of  rest  passes 
over  him,  and  he  is  renovated,  and  goes  back  to  his  labor 
with  fi-esh  vigor  and  an  elastic  spfrit.  The  command- 
ment, "  Remember  the  Sabbath  day,"  is  wi^itten  on  every 
muscle  and  sinew  m  man's  fi-ame,  and  he  who  remembers 
not  the  Sabbath  for  its  benign  uses  must  remember  it  jr. 
lassitude  and  miprofitableness. 


THE   SABBATH   A   LAW    OF   NATURAL   EELIGION.        24b 

Moreover,  experience  lias  shown,  not  only  that  the 
weekly  day  of  rest  is  needed,  but  that  it  suffices  for  indus- 
trial purposes.  The  maximum  of  health,  strengtli,  and 
working  capacity  is  attained  in  those  nations  and  commu- 
nities where  the  weekly  Sabbath  is  best  observed,  and  tlie 
residue  of  the  time  devoted  to  the  pursuits  of  active  life, 
and  fi-om  tliis  maximum  there  is  a  falling  oflP,  equally,  on 
the  one  hand,  in  commmiities  and  kinds  of  labor  on  Avhich 
"  Sunday  shines  no  Sabbath  day,"  and,  on  the  other,  in 
those  countries  in  wdiicli  numerous  holy  days  have  been 
converted  into  holidays,  —  a  system  which  uniformly  en- 
genders idleness  and  unthrift. 

The  law  of  the  Sabbath  is  written  also  on  the  consti- 
tution of  the  beasts  that  aid  man  m  his  labor;  and  the 
extension  of  its  immunities  to  cattle  in  the  Decalogue,  in 
an  age  when  neither  humanity  nor  far-sighted  selhslmess 
could  have  had  much  place  in  then-  treatment,  is  one  of 
the  many  internal  evidences  that  this  sublimest  compend 
of  practical  ethics  emanated  from  the  carefril  Providence 
of  Him  who  despises  nothing  that  he  has  made.  Before 
stage-coaches  on  our  long  routes  of  travel  became  his- 
torical, there  was,  in  the  economy  of  brute  life,  a  contrast, 
the  statistics  of  which,  if  not  substantiated  by  the  records 
of  many  years,  would  be  almost  incredible,  between  the 
hues  on  which  coaches  ran  but  six  days  in  the  week,  and 
those  on  which  the  weekly  Sabbath  was  not  recognized. 
Chateaubriand  says,  that  during  the  reign  of  atheism  in 
France,  when  the  National  Assembly  substituted  for  the 
week  and  the  Sabbath  the  decimal  division  of  time,  with  a 
holiday  every  tenth  day,  the  peasantry  in  the  iTiral  dis- 
tricts fomid  that  their  cattle  would  not  forsake  the  law  of 
God  for  the  ordinance  of  man.  The  strength  and  ani- 
mal spirits  of  the  beasts  dechned  under  the  new  regime. 


244  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

"  Our  cattle,"  said  the  rustics,  "  know  tlie  Sabbath,  and 
will  have  it " ;  ^  and  the  one  day's  rest  in  seven  was  re- 
sumed in  many  quarters  on  economical  grounds,  before 
the  nation  shook  off  the  nightmare  of  infidelity. 

The  law  of  the  Sabbath  is  written  even  on  inanimate 
natm-e.  The  artificial  aids  and  multipliers  of  human  in- 
dustry, the  fixtm-es  of  steam  and  water-power,  locomotive 
engines,  the  strongest  and  best-adjusted  machinery,  need 
periodical  rest  and  refitting,  no  less  than  the  limbs  and 
sinews  of  the  operative ;  and  though  we  cannot  assign  to 
the  repairing  of  water-courses  and  the  cleansing  of  boilers 
an  important  office  among  the  means  of  religious  edifica- 
tion in  a  manufacturing  city  or  village,  yet  the  notorious 
fact  that  Sunday  is  thus  employed,  often  from  midnight  to 
midnight,  shows  that  cupidity  driven  to  desperation  can 
never  obliterate  the  Sabbath. 

In  a  former  Lecture  I  illustrated  the  tendency  that 
there  is  in  the  ci\alized  world  to  over-production,  leaduig 
to  a  glut  in  the  markets,  and  necessitating  the  occasional 
suspension  of  many  departments  of  industry,  with  loss  of 
income  to  the  capitalists  and  of  subsistence  to  the  laborers. 
It  is  obvious  that  six  days'  work  in  each  commmiity  will 
more  than  suffice  for  the  needs  of  the  seven  days ;  and 
the  effect  of  the  weekly  Sabbath,  supposing  that  seven 
days'  labor  would  really  produce  more  than  six,  (which  I 
more  than  doubt,)  is  therefore  not  to  deprive  the  commu- 
nity of  the  needful  fi'uits  of  labor,  but  to  check  the  inju- 
rious excess  of  production. 

I  have  thus  far  spoken  only  of  the  physical  necessity 
for  the  Sabbath.  It  is,  if  possible,  even  more  absolutely 
essential  to  the  human  intellect.    Wlien  the  mind  pursues 

1  "Nos  boeufs  connaissent  le  dimanche,  et  ne  veulent  pas  travailler  ce 
jour-la."  —  Genie  du  Chrisiianisme,  Partie  4ieme,  Livre  l^r,  Chap.  IV. 


THE   SABBATH   A  LAW   OF  NATURAL  RELIGION.       245 

the  same  track  from  day  to  day  without  repose,  either  the 
mind  itself  loses  its  elasticity  and  its  full  working  power, 
thus  winning  for  itself  unsought  and  unwelcome  relief,  or 
else  the  overtasking  of  the  brain  induces  bodily  disease 
and  infirmity.  But,  with  the  weekly  rest,  or  the  change 
of  occupation  which  is  the  most  desnable  mode  of  rest  to 
the  vigorous  intellect,  the  most  arduous  pursuits  of  learn- 
ing, science,  or  professional  duty  may  be  sustamed  through 
a  long  life  with  unflagging  and  unwearied  energy.  Should 
any  one  doubt  the  necessity  of  which  I  speak,  I  could 
only  ask  him  to  assume  for  a  while  the  else  easy  and 
happy  charge  of  the  clerical  profession,  m  which  one  is 
tempted,  nay,  often  compelled,  to  devote  all  his  days  to 
the  same  class  of  duties,  —  the  noblest,  the  most  dehght- 
fid,  the  most  engrossmg  that  can  be  devolved  on  man,  — 
and  then  see  how  surely  his  mental  vigor  and  animal 
spirits  will  droop  after  a  few  months  of  continuous  toil,  so 
that  he  must  either  replace  his  lost  Sabbaths  by  a  pro- 
longed season  of  recreation,  or  bear  the  penalty  in  chronic 
illness  and  disablement.  I  doubt  whether  any  clergyman 
can  be  found  so  hardy  as  not  to  have  ascertained  that  the 
law  of  the  Sabbath  is  a  natural,  constitutional  law,  and  in 
that  respect,  if  in  no  other,  as  old  as  the  creation.  The 
testimony  of  the  greatest  minds  of  modern  times  in  this 
behalf  is  clear,  full,  and  strong.  I  might  easily  fill  my 
Lecture  with  citations  from  men  whose  names  alone  are 
solid  argiiments.  But,  not  to  multiply  witnesses  on  a 
point  so  obvious  and  self-evident,  I  will  barely  quote  a 
testimony  uttered  in  my  own  hearuig.  The  venerable 
Nathan  Dane,  to  whom  the  country  is  indebted  for  the 
Ordinance  of  1787  for  the  Government  of  the  North- 
west Territory,  was  deemed  the  most  erudite  lawyer  of 
his  time.     He  Hved  to  the  age  of  eighty-tlu-ee,  and  for 


246  CHRISTIAKITY  THE  RELIGION  OF  NATURE. 

many  years,  and  till  within  a  few  weeks  of  his  death,  he 
Bpent  fourteen  hours  a  day  in  his  library.  He  seemed 
incapable  of  light  labor  or  of  Hterary  recreation,  and 
eighty-four  hours  of  every  week  were  given  to  the  diiest 
details  of  law,  political  science,  and  recondite  liistoiy. 
Not  long  before  his  death,  he  told  me  that  he  attributed 
his  prolonged  and  undiminished  capacity  of  study  to  his 
having  for  a  full  half-century  devoted  the  Sabbath  to  an 
entirely  different  class  of  studies  from  those  which  occu- 
pied him  during  the  week,  —  not  to  easy  religious  reading 
(for  he  lacked  the  ability  of  even  such  relaxation),  but  to 
the  Hebrew  Scriptm'es  m  the  original,  to  ecclesiastical 
history,  and  to  the  profounder  themes  of  mquiry  connected 
with  the  Christian  revelation.  "From  Sundays  thus 
spent,"  said  he,  "I  have  always  returned  on  Monday 
morning  to  my  week's  work,  refreshed  and  strengthened." 
The  Sabbath  is  also  of  incalculable  worth  as  a  civihzmg 
agent.  How  little  opportunity  would  there  be  for  reflec- 
tion, for  the  growth  of  meditative  wisdom,  for  plans  that 
look  beyond  the  passmg  moment,  in  a  commmiity,  where 
fr'om  the  begmning  to  the  end  of  the  year  there  was  an 
unbroken  round  of  grovellmg  toil !  It  is  this  periodical 
change  in  the  routine  of  life,  this  diversion  of  the  thoughts 
mto  purer  channels,  that  gives  freshness  and  vigor  to  the 
general  mind,  imparts  the  impulse  to  improvement,  and 
creates  the  leisure  and  cherishes  the  reflective  habits  which 
alone  can  make  the  experience  of  the  past  availing.  It  is 
the  Sabbath  that  calls  men's  thoughts  off  from  the  work- 
ing-day world  to  the  region  of  the  intellect  and  the  imagi- 
nation, to  unearthly  questionings  and  musings,  to  philos- 
ophy and  poetry.  Hence  alone  the  popular  taste  and 
demand  for  literatm^e.  Hence  the  existence  of  an  intel- 
lectual department  of  society,  —  of  classes  of  men  whose 


THE   SABBATH   A   LAW   OF  NATURAL  RELIGION.        247 

business  it  is  to  instruct,  edify,  and  enrich  the  pubhc  mind. 
Were  there  no  Sabbath,  there  would  still  be  a  hterature  ; 
for  the  few  master-spirits  of  the  race  would  shine  out  with 
a  radiance  which  smTounding  darkness  would  be  unable 
equally  to  comprehend  and  to  quench.  But  these  greater 
hghts  would  beam  as  solitary  stars.  There  could  not  be 
the  galaxy  of  pure  taste,  refined  sentiment,  and  elevated 
thought,  in  which  Christendom  now  rejoices.  The  litera- 
ture that  sprang  into  bemg  would  be  the  property  of  the 
few,  not  of  the  many.  The  gi-eat  mass  of  the  people 
would  never  find  leisiu^e  to  grow  conversant  with  it, 
except  as  it  might  assume  the  lyric  form,  and  ally  itself  to 
music. 

The  distinction  here  suggested  may  be  clearly  traced 
between  Hebrew  and  classic  literatui'e  and  civihzation. 
The  Old  Testament  constituted  in  the  strictest  sense  a 
national  hteratm-e,  and  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  people 
were  familiar  with  it.  Hebrew  civihzation,  too,  though 
its  culminating  point  was  far  below  that  of  the  Periclean 
or  the  Augustan  age,  yet  penetrated  the  whole  commu- 
nity, permeated  every  vein  and  artery  of  the  body  pohtic. 
The  civilization  of  Greece  and  Rome,  on  the  other  hand, 
as  I  showed  you  in  my  last  Lectm-e,  was  confined  cliiefly 
to  the  circles  of  rank  and  wealth,  leaving  the  great  body 
of  the  people  unbenefited.  In  'producing  this  contrast, 
the  student  of  history  must,  I  think,  ascribe  more  influ- 
ence than  to  all  other  causes  combined  to  the  fact  that  in 
Judoea  the  whole  population  had  one  day  m  seven  seques- 
tered from  the  dusty  arena  for  calmer  thouglits  and  more 
elevating  duties,  while  upon  Athens  and  Rome  there  rose 
no  stated  day  of  rest  and  devotion. 

The  Sabbath  vindicates  for  itself  still  farther  a  place 
m  the  rehgion  of  nature,  on  the  ground  of  its  domestic 


248  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION  OF  NATURE. 

influences.  The  rust  of  the  world  would  corrode  the 
chain  of  home  sympathy  and  love,  were  it  not  burnished 
in  these  frequent  mtervals  of  holy  rest.  Thmk  of  the 
hves  which  the  great  majority  of  men  —  the  rich  often 
more  than  the  poor  —  lead  during  the  six  working-days, 
—  so  engrossed '  by  labor  or  harassed  by  business  as 
hardly  to  snatch  a  hasty  meal  with  then'  families,  fre- 
quently not  even  that,  forth  before  the  day  has  fairly 
opened,  returning  perhaps  not  till  a  late  evening  hour, 
rarely  getting  sight  of  the  younger  members  of  the  house- 
hold, and  meetmg  the  elder  only  at  hurried  moments  or 
in  extreme  weariness.  Were  tliis  the  routine  of  the 
whole  year's  life,  how  could  the  members  of  a  family  be- 
come acquainted  with  one  another's  minds  and  charac- 
ters? The  same  persons  might  for  half  a  century  call 
the  same  house  their  home,  yet  there  would  be  no  com- 
munion of  soul  with  soul,  no  growth  of  common  tastes 
and  sentiments.  The  father  would  be  the  mere  steward 
of  his  family,  and  the  dwellers  beneath  his  roof  would  be 
Httle  more  to  him  than  pleasant  fellow-lodgers  at  an  inn. 
But  the  Sabbath  4ias  attached  to  home  an  interest  and  a 
worth  which  can  be  derived  from  no  other  som^ce,  has 
cherished  and  refined  those  invaluable  departments  of  art 
and  taste  which  have  the  comfort  and  adornment  of  home- 
life  for  their  object,  and  stands  second  to  none  of  the 
agencies  by  which  are  shed  upon  us  the  holy  and  benig- 
nant influences  of  Him  in  whom  all  the  families  of  the 
earth  are  blessed. 

The  Sabbath  is  equally  essential  to  man's  political  well- 
being,  and  especially  to  the  permanence  of  free  institu- 
tions. It  is  the  day  of  equal  rights.  I^  levels  all  facti- 
tious distinctions.  It  owns  no  differences  of  wealth,  or 
caste,  or  race,  or  color  ;  but  proffers  its  benedicticn  to  all 


THE   SABBATH  A  LAW   OF  NATURAL  RELIGION.        249 

alike.  It  recognizes  man  as  he  is  in  the  counsels  and 
providence  of  Him  who  is  no  respecter  of  persons.  It  at 
once  Immbles  pride,  and  relieves  depression.  It  promotes 
a  healthful  sympathy  and  a  mutual  interest  among  all 
classes  of  society.  It  commends  the  poor  to  the  charity 
of  the  more  prosperous,  and  numberless  are  the  som'ces 
of  succor  for  the  burdened  and  the  indio;ent  which  flow 
from  the  Sabbath  assembly.  There  no  privileged  order 
steps  before  the  rest,  —  no  lordly  pontifl'  distances  and 
repels  the  humble  worshipper ;  but  as  high  and  low,  rich 
and  poor,  are  brought  into  a  community  of  relation  with 
their  Creator  and  Preserver,  and  through  him  with  one 
another,  they  cease  to  be  infatuated  on  the  one  hand,  and 
disheartened  on  the  other,  by  the  various  lots  which 
Providence  has  assigned  to  them.  Thus  the  spirit  of 
exclusive  aristocracy  is  repressed,  wdiile  the  tendency  to 
agrarianism  and  commmiism  is  equally  checked.  The 
haughty  separatist  and  the  factious  leveller  are  both 
rebuked,  and  the  foundations  of  republicanism  are  laid 
in  that  essential  equality  before  God  which  needs  no 
outward  addition  to  make  itself  perfect. 

It  is  a  striking  confirmation  of  these  views,  that  the 
friends  of  tyranny  and  of  anarchy  have  manifested  equal 
fear  of  the  Sabbath,  and  in  numerous  instances  have 
sought  to  undermine  its  oblio-ation  and  to  violate  its  sanc- 
tity,  as  a  step  of  prime  importance  toward  the  subversion 
of  freedom  or  of  law.  Thus,  when  the  British  cro'^^^l  was 
most  active  in  its  encroachments  on  the  liberties  of  the 
people,  the  Sabbath  was  a  chief  point  of  attack,  and  edicts 
w^ere  issued  from  the  court,  and  published  from  the  des- 
ecrated pulpits  of  an  Erastian  and  sycophantic  church, 
instituting  for  the  day  of  worship  noisy,  riotous,  and 
brutalizing  sports.  We  have  seen  that  the  same  hostihty 
11* 


250  CHRISTIANITY   THE   RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

to  the  Sabbatli  was  manifested  by  tlie  destractives  of  tlie 
French  Revolution.  In  our  own  land  and  day,  the  radicals, 
levellers,  and  no-government  men  who  from  time  to  time 
have  hfted  their  voices  against  law,  wholesome  subordina- 
tion, and  salutary  restramt,  have  uniformly  cast  the  first 
stone  at  the  Sabbath,  its  institutions  and  their  guardians. 

The  Sabbath  proffers  pecuhar  claims  to  be  regarded  m 
its  political  uses,  in  connection  with  the  eager  enterprise 
of  a  young  and  growing  people.  Our  nation  is,  no  doubt, 
characterized  beyond  all  others  by  earnestness  and  haste 
in  the  pursuit  of  wealth  and  preferment.  And  if,  in  the 
midst  of  this  breathless  competition,  everythmg  sacred  is 
not  trampled  under  foot ;  if  the  character  of  our  mer- 
chants is  marked,  with  rare  exceptions,  by  sterling  in- 
tegiity ;  if  there  be  a  surviving  seed  of  true  patriots,  — 
all  this  is  owing,  not  to  Christianity,  (for  where  w^ould 
its  counsels  find  entrance  among  the  closely  crowded 
cares  and  conflicts  of  daily  life  ?)  but  to  the  Sabbath, 
which  has  called  the  merchant  and  the  statesman  to  their 
homes  and  to  their  own  hearts,  has  checked  their  ardor  of 
pursuit,  let  in  the  solemn  light  of  eternity  on  transient 
gam  and  honor,  uttered  words  of  duty  and  accountable- 
ness,  and  held  up  the  infallible  muTor  of  Divme  revela- 
tion to  the  conscience  and  the  life. 

Then,  again,  in  our  frequently  recurring  seasons  of 
fierce  political  excitement,  who  can  say  to  what  a  height 
the  embittered  passions  of  partisans  might  mount,  and  in 
what  desolating  floods  of  uproar  and  violence  they  might 
discharge  themselves,  were  it  not  for  these  merciful 
breathmg-spells,  when  He  who  once  held  the  pulse-beat 
of  the  Galilean  sea  calms  the  billows  of  hmnan  strife,  and 
calls  the  stormy  wrath  of  man  to  praise  Him  ?  On  the 
six  days  men  remember  their  grounds  of  animosity  and 


THE   SABBATH   A   LAW   OF   NATURAL   RELIGION.        251 

conflict ;  on  the  seventh,  those  who  have  garrisoned  oppo- 
site camps  through  the  week  meet  face  to  face,  kneel  side 
by  side,  and  thoughts  of  toleration  and  kindness  break  in 
upon  their  oj^jinionativeness  and  mutual  repugnancy.  The 
voice  comes  to  them,  and  forces  itself  upon  their  hearts, 
"All  ye  are  brethren, — why  fall  ye  out  by  the  way? 
Why  wrong  ye  one  another  ?  "  And  though  the  morrow 
renew  the  strife,  they  retm-n  to  it  with  slackened  interest, 
and  with  the  hope,  awakened  by  the  period  of  hallowed 
calm,  for  the  speedy  close  of  the  controversy,  and  the 
quiet  reunion  of  the  distracted  body  politic. 

The  Sabbath  is  the  law  of  man's  religious  nature,  being 
absolutely  essential  to  the  social  expression,  the  diffusion, 
and  the  transmission  of  the  religious  sentiment.  Public 
worship  grows  natm'ally  and  spontaneously  from  the  great ' 
foundation-truths  of  a  common  paternity  and  a  common 
destiny.  These,  once  admitted  and  felt,  imply  and  crave 
religious  communion.  But  public  worship  and  enlarged 
commmiion  demand  a  Sabbath.  The  assembly  cannot  be 
convened  unless  the  time  be  appointed  and  known  before- 
hand, nor  frequently  gathered  unless  at  stated  intervals. 
For  so  solemn  an  act  as  Divine  worship,  it  seems  fitting 
that  the  same  day  be  observed  throughout  a  whole  com- 
mimity,  in  order  that  business  and  amusement  may  not 
interfere  with  devotion,  and  that  the  worshippers  may 
find  nothing  going  on  around  them  which  shall  call  off 
their  attention  from  their  rehgious  duties,  or  disturb  and 
wound  their  sensibilities  in  performing  them.  Hence 
natural  piety  would  prescribe  for  the  stated  days  of  wor- 
ship such  a  degree  of  rest  and  such  an  air  of  solemnity  in 
the  community  as  may  comport  witli  the  chgnity  of  the 
service  in  which  its  devout  members  are  eno;ao;ed. 

Yet  again,  were  there  no  Sabbath,  it  is  to  be  feared 


252  CHRISTIANITY   THE  RELIGION   OF   NATURE. 

that  for  tlie  great  mass  of  every  community,  nay,  for  many 
who  tlu'ougli  the  form  of  worship  have  heen  suffused  by 
its  spirit  and  energized  by  its  power,  there  would  be'no 
holy  time.  The  Sabbath,  by  suspending  worldly  engage- 
ments, creates  a  void  which  there  is  always  hope  that 
devotion  may  come  in  and  fill.  How  else  could  we  get 
the  ear  of  the  indiflPerent  for  relimous  tnitli  and  dutv? 
How  could  we  induce  them  to  pause  long  enough  in  the 
chase  of  present  pleasure  or  gain,  to  think  of  the  en- 
dm-mg  wealth  and  honor  of  the  Christian  calling  ?  You 
go  to  a  man  in  the  rush  of  business  or  the  sprmg-tide  of 
gayety,  and  he  puts  you  off  till  "a  more  convenient 
season."  On  the  Sabbath  the  convenient  season  has 
come.  The  world  is  still ;  the  congregation  is  gath- 
ered, and  he  joins  the  multitude  that  keep  holy  time. 
He  may  go  to  scoflF,  he  may  go  to  criticise,  he  may  go 
merely  because  others  go;  —  still  he  is  there,  and  the 
arrow  of  conviction  may  be  driven  home,  and  send  liim 
forth  to  repent  and  pray.     These  blessed  days  are 

"  Wakeners  of  prayer  in  man ;  —  his  resting-bo wers, 

As  on  he  journeys  in  the  narrow  way, 
Where,  Eden-like,  Jehovah's  walking-hours 

Are  waited  for  as  in  the  cool  of  day ;  — 
Days  fixed  by  God  for.  intercourse  with  dust. 

To  raise  our  thoughts  and  purify  our  powers;  — 
Periods  appointed  to  renew  our  trust ;  — 

A  gleam  of  glory  after  six  days'  showers." 

I  have  thus,  I  trust,  vindicated  the  claim  of  the  Sab- 
bath to  its  place  in  the  religion  of  nature.  Permit  me, 
in  closing,  to  commend  this  primeval  institution  to  yom' 
sacred  reverence  and  your  loyal  observance.  It  has  nur- 
tured—  and  nowhere  more  than  in  our  own  New  En^- 
land  —  great  and  holy  men,  elect  spiiits  in  every  walk  in 


THE  SABBATH  A  LAW  OF  NATUKAL  RELIGION.        258 

life,  —  those  who  have  become  chief  by  being  servants  of 
all,  those  who  have  uTadiated  the  lowest  stations  by  vir- 
tues that  Avould  have  adorned  the  highest.  The  vast 
themes  of  religions  contemplation  to  which  the  Sabbath 
invites  ns  enlarge  the  matrices  of  thought,  expand  the 
framework  of  the  soul,  stretch  the  extensor  muscles  of 
the  intellect,  nerve  and  sharpen  the  apprehensive  powers, 
feed  and  exalt  the  imagination,  and  re-create  the  soul  in 
an  ever-closer  hkeness  to  the  all-creative  Spmt.  He  who, 
like  Jacob  with  the  angel,  wrestles  in  these  hallowed 
hours  with  truths  vast  as  the  universe  and  boundless  as 
eternity,  gets  the  reward  of  the  athlete  in  comprehensive 
grasp  and  cogent  force  of  intellect,  and  can  thus  become 
adequate  m  every  field  to  cope  with  the  noblest  mmds,  to 
wrest  her  secrets  fr'om  Natm-e,  its  hoarded  wealth  of 
beauty  from  poetry,  its  power  to  enlighten,  guide,  and 
gladden  from  every  form  of  hterature  and  art. 

Above  all,  let  the  Sabbath  be  prized  and  honored  for 
the  sake  of  the  spiritual  natm'e.  The  religious  life  may, 
indeed,  derive  light  and  warmth  fr'om  the  few  moments  of 
daily  devotion,  —  from  holy  thoughts  that  rise  in  the 
midst  of  toil  and  care.  But  these  need  then-  prolonged 
kindhng  seasons,  and  I  have  yet  to  learn  that  daily  devo- 
tion or  the  prayer  without  ceasing  can  be  well  sustained 
without  the  agency  of  the  consecrated  Sabbath.  On 
other  days  there  are  nmnerous  mfluences  mifavorable  to 
the  spirit  of  piety,  and  the  altar-flame  must  often  be  hke 
a  fire  built  on  ice,  the  fiiel  brought  from  afar ;  and  whence 
but  from  the  Sabbath-pile  ?  But  if  the  soul  gives  itself 
up  on  that  one  day  to  religious  thoughts,  himiane  sympa- 
thies, peaceftd  contemplations,  spiritual  desh'es  and  affec- 
tions, it  takes  with  itself  a  treasury  for  the  draft  and  waste 
of  the  working-day  world,  —  bread  of  heaven  that  may 


254  CHRISTIANITY   THE   RELIGION   OF   NATURE. 

nourish  it  for  its  six  days'  journey.  "  Make  all  days  alike," 
is  a  maxim  not  mifrequently  urged  by  those  who  hold  the 
Sabbath  in  low  esteem.  I  would  echo  it.  Make  all  days 
alike,  —  the  nearer  alike  the  better.  But  level  upward, 
not  downward.  Keep  the  delectable  mountains,  which 
God  made  when  he  ma.de  the  world,  which  tower  above 
the  waters  of  the  Deluge,  and  fill  in  the  intervenmg 
valleys  as  high  as  you  can.  Let  Sabbath  thoughts  and 
feelings  flow  down  continually  into  the  week-days,  and 
leave  their  rich  deposit  there,  to  render  the  whole  life 
pm-er,  nobler,  more  faithful,  more  heavenly.  Let  the 
valleys  rise  higher  and  higher  as  the  weeks  roll  on,  till 
you  have  made  all  days  ahke,  the  gromid  all  table-land,  — 
till  the  life  is  a  perpetual  Sabbath,  a  prototype  of  the 
New  Jerusalem  Sabbath,  whose  smi  goes  not  down,  whose 
worship  never  dies  upon  the  ear,  of  which  it  is  written, 
"  The  glory  of  God  doth  hghten  it,  and  the  Lamb  is  the 
light  thereof." 

I  have  thus  completed  my  assigned  course  of  Lectm'es  ; 
but  I  feel  that  I  have  barely  marked  for  you  here  and 
there  a  station  of  thought,  and  made  with  you  fragmen- 
tary surveys  which  it  remains  for  you  to  connect  and 
extend  by  your  own  reflection  and  research.  I  com- 
menced by  showing  you  the  necessary  identity  of  natural 
and  revealed  religion,  which  differ,  not  m  their  substance, 
but  in  their  som'ces.  I  set  forth  the  msufficiency  and 
inadequacy  of  our  o^^ai  powers  for  the  attainment  of 
religious  truth.  I  exhibited  revelation,  miracles,  and 
authoritative  scriptures  as  postulates  of  natm'al  religion, 
and  therefore  in  themselves  antecedently  probable.  I 
presented  the  evidence  of  the  Divine  paternity  in  nature 
and  in  human  experience,  and  considered  the  more  patent 


CONCLUSION.  255 

objections  to  it  derived  from  suffering,  from  moral  evil, 
and  from  the  condition  of  the  unprivileged  portion  of  our 
race.  I  illustrated  the  Divine  providence  in  human  art, 
and  in  the  distribution  of  capacities  and  endowments 
among  men.  I  demonstrated  the  Divme  holiness  from 
the  human  conscience,  and  fi-om  the  inevitable  law  of 
moral  retribution.  I  exhibited  the  accordance  of  the 
official  relations  of  Jesus  Christ  to  mankind  with  natural 
religion.  I  adduced  the  extra-Scriptm-al  arguments  for 
the  immortality  brought  to  light  in  the  Gospel.  I  illus- 
trated the  accordance  of  Christian  morality  with  natural, 
miiversal,  and  eternal  law,  and  the  foundation  in  nature 
for  the  fundamental  precepts  of  love  to  God  and  to  man, 
and  of  personal  and  social  duty.  I  considered  the  polit- 
ico-religious basis  of  government  and  social  order.  Fi- 
nally, in  the  present  Lecture,  I  have  shown  that  Christian 
mstitutions  —  the  Sabbath  especially  —  are  not  arbitrary, 
but  legitimated  on  grounds  of  natural  fitness. 

I  have  endeavored,  without  transcending  the  theme  as- 
signed to  me, — natural  religion,  —  to  present  what  seems 
to  me  the  most  important  portion  of  the  evidence  for  Chris- 
tianity. But  because  I  have  laid  emphatic  stress  on  its 
coincidence  with  nature,  I  would  not  have  you  infer  that 
I  hold  the  external  evidences  on  which  also  it  rehes  in 
light  esteem.  On  the  other  hand,  they  seem  to  me 
impregnable,  and  they  have  gained  new  strength  with 
the  researches  of  the  present  age  in  geography,  in  archae- 
ology, and  especially  in  the  disinterred  monuments  and 
deciphered  records  of  Egypt  and  of  Nineveh.  But  a 
first-hand  acquaintance  with  these  evidences  requires 
time,  which  indeed  cannot  be  more  worthily  spent,  but 
which  all  have  not  at  then-  command,  and  an  extended 
familiarity  with  books  to  which  few  except  those  who 
devote  themselves  to  theological  study  have  easy  access 


256  CHRISTIANITY  THE  RELIGION   OF  NATURE. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  proof  of  the  Dmne  origin  of 
Christianity  derived  from  its  accordance  with  man's  na- 
ture and  needs,  and  with  the  essential  laws  of  the  outward 
and  the  spiritual  universe,  can  be  appreciated  by  every 
serious  mind,  and  to  me  it  seems  complete,  demonstrative, 
unanswerable.  In  these  two  classes  of  evidences,  God 
has  given  us  m  behalf  of  his  revelation,  as  it  were,  two 
independent  and  amply  competent  witnesses,  either  worthy 
of  entne  credence,  and  both  together  creating  an  assur- 
ance beyond  the  reach  of  cavil  or  the  shadow  of  doubt. 
But  the  argument  from  nature  has  one  prerogative.  Ex- 
ternal evidence  and  testimony  prove  that  Clu^istianity  is  a 
Divme  revelation,  but  not  that  it  is  final  and  sufficient  for 
all  time.  Its  coincidence  mth  natm'e  demonstrates  its 
eternity  and  its  universal  adaptation,  and  proves  Christ 
not  only  the  accredited  Author,  but  equally  the  Finisher 
of  the  faith  wliich  alone  can  renovate,  sanctify,  and  save 
our  race. 

If  Clnistianity  has  its  fomidation  m  man's  nature  and 
needs,  it  can  never  be  outgTo^vn,  nor  can  its  records 
become  obsolete.  It  is  the  sole  Smi  of  righteousness,  and 
must  forever  be  the  central  orb  of  the  sphitual  universe. 
But  it  may  or  may  not  be  our  luminary  and  guide.  As 
the  earth  in  its  amiual  circuit  throws  our  northern  zone 
where  only  the  oblique  rays  of  the  winter  solstice  reach 
it,  and  ^dtal  warmth  almost  deserts  it,  so  may  we  make 
for  our  souls  a  whiter  solstice  by  our  worldhness,  our  con- 
tented sensualism,  our  vohmtary  gTiilt.  And  we  may, 
too,  create  for  ourselves  a  perpetual  smnmer  solstice  by 
our  earnest  aspirations,  by  our  docihty  of  spnit,  by  hearts 
ever  open  to  the  influence  of  the  Divme  truth  and  love. 

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Philosophy  in  Chicago  University.    Royal  12mo,  cloth,  embossed,  1.75. 

It  is  eminently  scientific  in  method,  and  thorough  in  discussion,  and  its  views  on  unsettled  ques' 
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HOPKINS'  LECTUItES   ON  MOSJLD  SCIENCE,  delivered  before  thr 
Lowell  Institute,  Boston,  by  3Iap.k  Hopkins,  D.  D.,  President  of  William^ 
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03"  An  important  work  from  the  pen  of  one  of  the  most  profound  thinkers  of  the  age. 

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WJLYEAND'S   MORAE   SCIENCE  ABMIDGEn,   and  adapted  to  the 

use  of  Schools  and  Academies,  by  the  Author.    Half  mor.,  70  cts. 
The  same,  Cheap  School  Edition,  boards,  45  cts. 

W AYE  AND' S  ELEMENTS  OF  FOZITICAE  ECONOMY.  By  FrAN. 
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AGASSIZ  AND  GOTTED'S  PMINCIPEES  OF  ZOOLOGY,-  Touching 
the  Structure,  Development,  Distribution,  and  Natural  Arrangement,  of  the 
Races  of  Animals,  living  and  extinct,  -with  numerous  Illustrations.  For 
the  use  of  Schools  and  Colleges.  Part  I.  Comparative  Physiology^.  By 
Louis  Agassiz  and  Augustus  A.  Gould.    Revised  edition.    1.50. 

PAET  II.    Systematic  Zoology.    In  preparation. 
"  It  is  simple  and  elementary  in  its  style,  full  in  its  illustrations,  comprehensive  in  its  range,  yet 
Well  condensed,  and  brought  into  the  narrow  compass  requisite  for  the  purpose  intended."  —  Sim- 
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HITTER'S  GEOGEAPHIC^LL  STUDIES.  Translated  from  the  German 
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a  Portrait,    12mo,  cloth,  1.50. 

This  volume  contains  the  grand  generalizations  of  Hitter's  life-work,  the  Erdkiinde,  in  eighteen 
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papers  on  Physical  Geography. 

PMOGRESSirE   PEN3IANSSIP,  Plain  and  ornamental,  for  the  use  ol 

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so  classificfl  and  arrang-ed  as  to  facilitate  tlie  expression  of  ideas,  and  assist  in 
literary  composition.  New  and  improved  edition.  By  Pktkk  M.vnn:  Roget, 
late  Secretary  of  tlje  Koyal  Society,  London,  etc.  Revised  and  edited,  witli  a 
List  of  Foreign  Words  defined  in  Knglisli,  and  other  additions,  by  B.vitxA* 
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this  it  contains  important  additions  not  in  the  English  edition,  of  words  and  phrases,  and  also  an 
alphabetical  list  of  "FoKEiox  Words  and  Pni{ASES"-Latin,  French,  Italian,  Spanish,  Greek, 
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in  all  re»pects  more  full  and  perfect  than  the  author's  edition. 

GTTYOT'S  EAMTH  AND  MAX;  Lectures  on  Comparative  PHVSiOAb 
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mounted  for  use. 

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half  mor.,  1.50. 

Thf'  *bove  works  by  Prof.  Barton,  dcsisucd  as  text-books  for  the  use  of  schools  and  acadciuie% 
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3 


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triJOlLER'S  CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY;  or,  a  Summer  Ramble  among 
the  Fossiliferous  Deposits  of  the  Hebrides.  Witli  Rambles  of  a  Geologist; 
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12mo,  cloth,  1.75. 

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MIILER'S  HEADSHIP  OF  CHRIST,  and  the  Rights  of  the  Christian 
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CSAMBERS*   CTCLOrJEDIJL   OF  JE  KG  LIS  IT  JLITERATUME.    A 

Selection  of  tlie  clioicest  productions  of  English  Authors,  from  the  earliest  to 
the  present  time.  Connected  by  a  Critical  and  Biographical  History.  Forming 
two  large  imperial  octavo  volumes  of  700  pages  each,  double-column  letter 
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complete  view  of  English  l.iterature  from  the  earliest  to  the  present  time.  Let  the  reader  open, 
where  he  will,  he  cannot  fail  to  find  matter  for  profit  and  delight.  The  selections  are  gems- 
infinite  riches  in  a  little  room;  in  thelanguageof  another,  "A  whole  English  LiBKAKr  fused 

DOWX  IXTO   ONE   ClIEAP   DOOK." 

G3~The  Amep-ican  edition  of  this  valuable  work  is  enriched  by  the  addition  of  fine  steel  and 
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These  important  and  elegant  additions,  together  with  superior  paper  and  binding,  and  other  im- 
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CHAMBERS'  HOME  BOOK;  or,  Pocket  Miscellany,  containing  a  Choice 
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volumes.    IGmo,  cloth,  6.00;  library  sheep,  7.00. 

JJtVIXE'S  CTCLOl^.EDIA  OF  AJ^EC DOTES  OF  ZITEBATUBE 
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Literary  Characters  and  Artists  of  different  Countries  and  Ages,  &c.  By 
Kazlitt  Ara'ine,  a.  M.,  author  of  "  Cyclopaedia  of  Moral  and  Religious 
Anecdotes."  AVith  numerous  illustrations.  725  pp.  octavo,  cloth,  4.00;  sheep, 
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must  commend  it  especially  to  public  speakers,  to  the  various  classes  of  literary  and  scientific  vien, 
to  artists,  mechanici,  and  others,  as  a  Dictionary /or  reference,  in  relation  to  facts  on  the  num- 
berless subjects  and  characters  introduced.  There  are  also  more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  fine 
Illustrations. 

BAYNE'S    ESSAYS    IN    BIOGRAFITY    AND     CRITICISE!.       By 

Peter  Bayne,  :M.  A.,  author  of  "  The  Christian  Life,  Social  and  Individual." 
Arranged  in  two  Series,  or  Parts.     12mo,  cloth,  each,  1.75. 

These  volumes  have  been  prepared  and  a  number  of  the  Essays  written  by  the  author  expressly 
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THE  IjANHING  at  cape  ANNE ;  or,  The  Charter  of  the  First 
Permanent  Colony  on  the  Territory  of  the  Massachusetts  Co>r- 
PANY.  Now  discovered,  and  first  published  from  the  original  manuscript, 
■with  an  inquiry  into  its  authority,  and  a  History  of  the  Colony,  1621-162^ 
Roger  Conant,  Governor. '  By  J.  Wingate  Thornton.  8vo,  cloth. 2.50. 
Ba~  "  A  rare  contribution  to  the  early  history  of  New  England."—  JbuniaJ. 

5 


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TME  JPTTMITANS  ;  or,  The  Court,  Church,  and  Parliament  of  England,  frap- 
ing  the  reigns  of  Edward  VI.  and  Elizabeth.  By  Samuel  Hopkins,  autacH 
of  Lessons  at  the  Cross,"  etc.  In  3  vols.  Octavo,  cloth,  per  vol.,  3.00 ;  sheep, 
4.00;  half  calf,  6.00. 

It  will  be  foimd  the  most  interesting  and  reliable  History  of  the  Puritans  yet  published,  narrating^ 
in  a  dramatic  style,  many  facts  hitherto  unknown. 

TS:E  FJtEACHEB,  A.NI>  THE  KING  ;  or,  Bourdaloue  in  the  Court  of 
Louis  XIV. ;  being  an  Account  of  the  Pulpit  Eloquence  of  that  distinguished  era. 
Translated  from  the  French  of  L.  F.  Bungexer,  Paris.  Introduction  by  the 
Eev.  George  Potts,  D.  D.  A  new,  improved  edition,  with  a  fine  Likeness  and 
a  Biographical  Sketch  of  the  Author.    l2mo,  cloth,  1.50. 

THE  PMIESt  AND  THE  HTIGVENOT ;   or,  Persecution  in  the  Age  of 
Louis  XV.    From  the  French  of  L.  F.  Bungener.    Two  vols.  12mo,  cloth,  3.00. 
1^-  This  is  not  only  a  work  of  thriUing  interest,  —  no  fiction  could  exceed  it,  —  but,  as  a  Protes- 
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THE  PULFIT  OF  THE  A3IEJIICAN  MEVOZUTION ;  or.  The  Po- 

.  litical  Sermons  of  the  Period  of  1776.  With  an  Historical  Introduction,  IS'otes, 
Illustrations,  etc.    By  John  Wingate  Thornton,  A.  M.    l2mo,  cloth,  1.75. 

THE  LEAD  EMS  OF  THE  REFORMATION.    LUTHER,  CALVIN,  LAT- 
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Scotland.    By  J.  Tulloch,  D.  D.,  Author  of  "  Theism,"  etc.    12mo,  cloth,  1.50. 
A  portrait  gallery  of  sturdy  reformers,  drawn  by  a  keen  eye  and  a  strong  hand.    Dr.  Tulloch  dis- 
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THE  HAWAIIAN  ISLANDS ;  their  Progress  and  Condition  under  Mis- 
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IjIGHT  in  darkness  ;  or,  Christ  Discerned  in  his  True  Character  by  a 
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"Bamptou  Foundation."    By  Reu.  H.  Longueville  Mansel,  B.  D.,  Keader 
in  Moral  and  Metaphysical  Philosophy  at  Magdalen  College,  Oxford,  and  Edito 
of  Sir  William  Hamilton's  Lectures.    With  Copious  jN'otes  translated  fc 
the  American  edition.    12mo,  cloth,  1.50. 

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light  suppressed  hopes,  expose  false  ones,  and  confirm  the  true.  By  Rev.  J.  A. 
Goodhue,  A.  M.  With  an  introduction  by  Rev.  E.  N.  Kirk,  D.  D.  12mo, 
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SATAN'S   DEVICES   AND    THE    RELIEVER'S    VICTORY,      Bj 

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CnVI>EN*S  CONDENSED  CONCOJRDANCE.  A  Complete  Concordance 
to  the  Holy  Scriptures.  By  Alexander  Ckuden.  Revised  and  re-edited  by 
the  Rev.  David  King,  LL.  D.    Octavo,  cloth  arabesque,  1.75  j  sheep,  2.00. 

The  condensation  of  the  quotations  of  Scripture,  arranged  under  the  most  obvious  heads,  ■while 
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"  We  have  in  this  edition  of  Cruden  the  best  made  better."—  Puritan  Recorder. 

EADIE'S  ANAZTTICJUL  CONCORDANCE  OF  THE  HOLY 
SCBIPTTTHES  ;  or,  the  Bible  presented  under  Distinct  and  Classified 
Heads  or  Topics.  By  John  Eadie,  D.  D.,  LL.  D.,  Author  of  "  Biblical  Cyclo- 
paedia," "  Ecclesiastical  Cyclopaedia,"  "  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,"  etc.  One  vol- 
ume, octavo,  840  pp.,  cloth,  4.00  ;  sheep,  5.00 ;  cloth,  gilt,  5.50  ;  half  calf,  G.50. 
The  object  of  this  Concordance  is  to  present  the  Scriptures  entire,  under  certain  classified 

and  exhaustive  heads.    It  differs  from  an  ordinary  Concordance,  in  that  its  arrangement  depends 

not  on  WORDS,  but  on  subjects,  and  the  verses  are  printed  in  full. 

KITTO'S  JPOrULAR  CYCJLOFJEDIA  OF  BIBJLICAJO  LITERA- 
TURE. Condensed  from  the  larger  work.  By  the  Author,  John  Kitto, 
D.  D.  Assisted  by  James  Taylor,  D.  D.,  of  Glasgow.  With  over  five  hun- 
dred Illustrations.  One  volume,  octavo,  812  pp.,  cloth,  4.00  ;  sheep,  5.00  ;  half 
calf,  7.00. 

A  Dictionary  of  the  Bible.  Serving  also  as  a  Commentary,  embodying  the  products  of 
the  best  and  most  recent  researches  in  biblical  literature  in  which  the  scholars  of  Europe  and 
America  have  been  engaged. 

KITTO'S  HISTORY  OF  PALESTINE,  from  the  Patriarchal  Age  to  the 
Present  Time ;  with  Chapters  on  the  Geography  and  Natural  History  of  the 
Country,  the  Customs  and  Institutions  of  the  Hebrews.  By  John  Kitto, 
D.  D.    With  upwards  of  two  hundred  Illustrations.    12mo,  cloth,  1.75. 

1^-  A  work  admirably  adapted  to  the  Family,  the  Sabbath  School,  and  the  week-day  School  lA- 
biary 

WESTCOTT'S  INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  STUDY  OF  THE  GOS- 
PELS.    AYith  Historical  and  Explanatory  Notes.    By  Brooke  Foss 
Westcott,  M.  a.,  late  Fellow  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge.    With  an  Intro- 
duction by  Prof.  H.  B.  Hackett,  D.  D,    Koyal  12mo,  cloth,  2.00. 
i^"  A  masterly  work  by  a  master  mind. 

ELLICOTT'S    LIFE    OF    CHRIST    HISTORICALLY     CONSID- 
ERED.     The  Hulsean  Lectures  for  1859,  with  Notes  Critical,  Historical,  and 
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1^"  Admirable  in  spirit,  and  profound  in  argument. 

fiAWLINSON>S  HISTORICAL  EVIDENCES  OF  THE  TRUTH 
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reference  to  the  Doubts  and  Discoveries  of  Modern  Times.  In  Eight  Lectures, 
delivered  in  the  Oxford  University  pulpit,  at  the  Bamptou  Lecture  for  1859.  By 
Geo.  Rawlinson,  31.  A.,  Editor  of  the  Histories  of  Herodotus.  Witli  the  Co- 
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18 


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CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS.  A  Sequel  to  the  Anxious  Inquirer.  By  John 
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